


Blank

by Patchouli (lifelesslyndsey)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Birthday Sex, Depression, Derek is 24, Frottage, Good Parent Sheriff Stilinski, Healthy Communication, Healthy consent, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, drugging with good intentions, fight me, sleep overs, thumb sucking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/Patchouli
Summary: “I’ll be your blanket,” Derek says stupidly, hunkering farther down into the mattress.   Slowly, he curls an arm over Stiles and reels him in closer. Stiles allows it, the slight quake of his shoulders easing away, as he melts into the mattress, into Derek.Stiles doesn’t move from Derek’s touch. “It seems like a lot to ask.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 89
Kudos: 480
Collections: Teen Wolf





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this unpublished lil bit of StilesxDerek in my archives and thought - hey, I should post this for shits and gigs.

When Stiles slumps over onto Scott’s shoulder during their weekly movie night, everyone turns to stare at him. He’s asleep - _deep_ asleep, with his mouth open, and his face slack. 

“I slipped a couple of crushed-up Benzos into his Doctor Pepper,” Lydia comments blandly, throwing her bare feet up onto the coffee table. She’s painting Kira’s nails a deep, smokey grey with tiny, precise strokes. She doesn’t spare them a glance as she speaks. “He needs sleep, and my mom will hardly miss them.” 

“Is that...Safe?”Isaac asks. “I mean, with everything....” The darkness in his heart, the aftermath of the Nogistune, the probable (obvious) PSTD, the hypervigilance...

Scott pokes at Stiles gently, frowning. “He’ll be okay?”

“It’s only Stiles in there now,” Lydia speaks softly, and no one else speaks at all. “But look at him. He clearly hasn’t been sleeping.” 

It’s true; the rings beneath Stiles' eyes left behind by the Nogistune never really left. He’s still gaunt, cheeks hollowed, and head heavy. His hair lays disheveled and flat over his forehead. It’s only Stiles in there now, but a Stiles who wasn’t doing so great. 

“He looks like he’s dying,” Malia says, and there’s no anger there, no confusion. Malia has seen animals give up in the wild, the hurt or sick ones. They looked like they were dying too. 

“Let him sleep,” Allison says, from the other couch. So they do. 

He’s still asleep when the movies over, hanging awkwardly over the arm of the couch. His limbs twitch, hands curling into fists. Like dogs who run while they dream, Derek wonders what Stiles is doing behind the pink of his eyelids. “Put him in my bed,” he decides when Scott moves to wake him. “He’ll be more comfortable.” 

Scott agrees, hefting the slight weight of Stiles into his arms. The curve of his body feels breakable in a way that it never had before. It reminds Scott of the bird Deaton had rescued only weeks before - hollow boned, delicate. 

“I’ll let his dad know,” Liam mumbles, fumbling for his phone. They all have the Sheriff’s number now, even Derek. There’s something comforting about it too, nestled therein with the rest of the pack numbers. It fits.

Stiles curls into a ball a soon as he hits the mattress, pulling at the blankets with his body. He doesn’t wake, mouth twitching with silent words, lashes fluttering but closed. Scott swallows the urge to crawl in there beside him. The bed stinks of Derek, who isn’t supposed to be an Alpha but...but Scott can still smell it on him. He might be a True Alpha- but there’s something in Derek that’s more. It’s not always the most welcoming scent, especially not here, where he sleeps. It is a _safe_ scent, though; Stiles is safe. 

“He likes blankets,” Scott says stupidly. Derek’s the only one left in the loft, and he’s leaning against the beam that separates the kitchen from the living room. “But he can’t sleep without his pillow; I should...I should take him home---” 

“Let him sleep,” Derek says, quiet and gentle like it never was before. “I’ll keep him safe, Scott.” 

_Like I couldn’t,_ Scott thinks. Derek would never say as much, wouldn’t even think it. “I know you will.” Because Scott is an Alpha, yes, but Derek is...Derek is Derek. Scott knows what that means now. Derek means _always doing your best, trying your hardest, and never giving up._ Derek means doing the worst possible thing in the world if it means the best possible outcome. Derek means keeping hope when you have nothing else. Derek means breaking your own heart to save someone else. Derek means fighting for family, even after their gone. Scott...Scott can see that now, in a way he never could before.

On a whim, he whips his phone out and snaps a picture of Stiles, drooling into Derek’s pillow. “Posterity,” Scott says. It’s a word from the silly word-of-the-day calendar Stiles had given him. “Stiles will love to hate it.” 

  
  


***

When Scott leaves, Derek pulls Stiles' shoes off and lines them up at the foot of the bed. The kid is out, chest rising and falling in long, deep succession. He doesn’t approve of Lydia’s methods, but he can’t deny the kid needed sleep. Derek unzips his hoodie, easing it off each shoulder, and out from beneath Stiles' body in slow, careful movements. He thinks about taking his jeans off too, but they’re not that close. Or maybe they are, but Derek can’t bring himself to do it. 

There isn’t much else to do, but tug the bedspread out from beneath, and tuck him in goodnight. Derek watches as Stiles curls into himself the minute the blanket settles against his body, a cyclone of twisted fabric until he’s lost in a sea of cotton. He looks too pale against the black sheets and too thin against the pillowy comforter. 

The couch smells like pack. Derek sleeps there on his lonelier nights, comforted by the scent. He pulls the blanket from the back -it’s a wild rainbow of colors woven together. Cora had sent it to him from Argentina, and he’s not entirely convinced it isn’t a rug from the way it lays against his body and scratches at his skin. Sleep doesn’t come easy, but it comes none the less. 

Until he wakes to crying. 

It’s...

It’s not _normal_ crying. 

It’s a broken, breathless little sob that speaks of hurt, of pain and terror and fire and---

Derek bolts up from the couch, and catches sight of Stiles flailing in a tangle of bedding, limbs fighting weakly against nothing---

“Stiles, Stiles,” he rushes out, as he sprints across the room to the bedside. He pins Stiles down with his whole body, tugging at the blanket with his free hand, and Stiles just--- He _fights_ . He fights against the sheets; he fights against Derek, nails catching his skin, leaving shallow scratches and blood where they pull. “It’s a dream,” Derek tells him, getting the blanket free. “Come on, Stiles, it’s a dream. A nightmare! You’re safe. You’re _safe_. I’m here. I’ve got you.” But Stiles can’t wake up under the crush of chemical; he’s trapped. Derek grabs him by the jaw when he starts thrashing his head back and forth, mouth open wide as he might scream---

But he doesn’t. 

He...

He sucks Derek’s thumb into his mouth and _whimpers_ , whole body tensing and relaxing as fast as lightning. The kid just fucking _melts_ and lays there shivering like a wet kitten, Derek’s thumb in his mouth. 

It’s the strangest thing. 

Derek _gets_ it, on an abstract sort of level. It’s a nursing instinct, like in babies. Cubs. It’s soothing. He might have, in retrospect, seen Stiles do something similar while lucid. The kid keeps his mouth busy when it’s not talking, at any rate. Stiles curls over onto his side, fetal and small and shaking, and he takes Derek with him. It forces Derek to spoon up behind him, and--- And it’s not really right. He should take his hand away. Wake Stiles up gently, and return himself to the couch. Untangle them both from the sheets. But the bed still stinks of terror-sweat, and the kid is still trembling. Derek doesn’t have it in him. Stiles isn’t really even sucking his thumb...he’s just sort of holding it there, between his teeth, right at the knuckle. The warm, wet press of his tongue is strange against the pad of Derek’s finger, but it’s not...bad. 

Derek goes to sleep.

***

It’s not morning when Stiles wakes him - close, but not quite. Derek has no reason to wake before the sun anymore and refuses to do so on most days. There’s no point in fighting for a life you can’t enjoy, and Derek enjoys sleeping.

“Lydia drugged me?” Stiles asks, staring up at the high beamed ceilings of the loft. There’s a water spot in the left corner that looks like Franklin Roosevelt. Or Zach Galifianakis maybe, if you tilt your head and squint. “I couldn’t wake up.” 

“I didn’t know.” About Lydia’s plans. About the horrific nightmares, the crying. Derek’s well familiar in not-knowing, unfortunately. But he’s trying to learn. “You haven’t been sleeping.” 

“When I was little,” Stiles says, apropos of nothing. “I was afraid of the dark. I had nightlights. I slept with the door cracked open, and the hallway's light on. My mom gave me a flashlight to keep under my pillow. But none of it made me feel as safe as hiding under my blanket. Because it was never the dark I was terrified of, but what I couldn’t _see_ in the dark, you know?” 

On a whim, Derek pulls the covers over them both. Stiles huffs, but the corners of his mouth curl up anyway. He turns to his side, facing Derek with wide eyes that catch the little light spilling in through the cracks of the blanket-nest. “I loved the blankets. Still do. But no amount of blankets can hide me from what I can’t see in the dark. Not when the darkest thing I’ve seen lives behind my eyelids.”

“Stiles---” 

“I see it all the time,” Stiles rushes out, and Derek thinks maybe it’s better just to let him speak, here in the comfort of beneath-the-blanket. “What he did. What _I_ did. What he wanted to do. What he could have done. There were these paths, you see. Paths where Lydia died, or Scott died, or Allison died. Paths where Chris Argent tried to shoot me, and you kill him. Paths where you kill me and Chris kills you. Paths where I kill my father. He showed me everything- and they were truths, Derek. They were things that would happen if he did this, or if he did that. Everything felt like dominos - one wrong move... I saw it all, and I felt it all like it was real. Sometimes---sometimes he’d make me choose the path we took. And I’d have to...I’d try to pick the one where the least amount of people got hurt, but someone always did, and I chose that. They died, and I made that choice. I’ve watched every single one of you die. I’ve killed you all, and I’ve felt it, and I see it every time I’m asleep.” 

Derek doesn’t say _‘It wasn’t you,’_ because while Stiles is innocent, his hands are not clean. It was him, in a sense, that he did it and he was there, out-of-mind but in-body. He’s not guilty, but he can’t escape the guilt. It’s a notion Derek understands deeply. 

“It didn’t hit me right away,” Stiles continues. “There was no time. Not with Kate, and the Berserkers, and getting you back from Mexico, and then the Benefactor Peter We’re Fucked With A Capital F thing going down... There was no _time_. But now it’s quiet and I...I don’t know what to do. I’m terrified all the time. If it were something in a book, that’d be fine. I’d find a way; I’d make a plan. But mostly, I’m terrified of me, and I don’t know how to fight that.” 

“I’ll be your blanket,” Derek says stupidly, hunkering farther down into the mattress. Slowly, he curls an arm over Stiles and reels him in closer. Stiles allows it, the slight quake of his shoulders easing away, as he melts into the mattress, into Derek. 

Stiles doesn’t move from Derek’s touch. “It seems like a lot to ask.” 

“I hid under the blankets too.” When he was little. When he was not little. When he couldn’t shake the scent of smoke from his nose. “I get it. I get the...the hypervigilance. I’ve been running for so long. Protecting Laura, myself, the pack...I don’t know how not too. So maybe...let me protect you.” It’s a lot to say out loud, feels like he’s spitting up blood and glass, but Stiles need to hear it just as much as Derek needs to say it. They’re not that close, not really - not in any spoken manner. But Derek thinks...they can trust each other now. 

Stiles lashes flutter close. “I still see them sometimes,” he murmurs, a quiet secret between the sheets. “The paths. I don’t know if they’re the truth like before, but I still see them. Sometimes, I see a car turn left, and I think ‘if you’d turned right, you’d have hit the kid crossing the road, he’d have died, his mother would have killed herself.’ And it all feels so real.” He opens his eyes and looks at Derek. They’re close enough now; they’re sharing breath. “Then I saw you on the ground, bleeding out and telling me to go save Scott--- I didn’t see you dying.” The beat of his heart ticks faster, once, twice, as he works himself up. “But you were! But...there was no path for your death. And then you didn’t, you---”

Derek lays a palm over Stiles' mouth. “I came back,” he tells him, because why not? They’re here, in his bed, sweat-soaked and whispering, and it’s not something they do or have ever done. But it’s okay - it’s...This is how Laura would have handled it. With blankets and whispering, and firm hands. Derek didn’t have the chance to teach gently before. He’d like to try, though. “Sleep. You’re safe, okay? I’ll keep you safe. This is what the pack does.” 

“This is what _you_ do,” Stiles corrects. “You protect everyone, don’t you?”

“It’s not a one-person job. I...We have a Pack now. That matters. ” There’s blood on his hands, more than in his body, and it’s what haunts his dreams. But he’s not alone anymore; protecting is more than just fighting. It’s a _family_. “I’ve got your back.” 

“Don’t let me wake up, not me,” Stiles slurs, stupid and sleepy and sad. 

Derek promises, “I won’t.” 

***

Stiles is gone when Derek finally drags himself out of bed. It’s well past nine in the morning; Stiles left at seven. Derek heard him creep out, stumbling over his shoes at the end of the bed and cursing quietly into the warm morning light. 

He wonders over the first cup of coffee if it will be weird—sharing bed-space and sharing head-space that is. Stiles told him something he had not told anyone else. Derek understands the innate need to keep fears hidden. Fears are burdens; they hold you back. But Stiles shared his with Derek, safe in a tent of sleep-heat and blankets. Derek wonders if he should share more too. He wonders what he’d share that Stiles doesn’t already know.

***

“I’m still afraid of the water,” he says, perched on Stiles's windowsill. The kid flails; Derek doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing. “And fire. But that’s no secret.”

“Cheesus crust on a Christian cracker, what is _wrong_ with you?” He clutches at his shirt - Derek imagines pearls - and huffs out a long gust of breath. He’s dressed for bed, smells like toothpaste, like exhaustion. “Doors. You’re welcome to use them. My dad _likes_ you now.” 

“I’m still afraid of the water,” Derek says again, and he wonders if it sounds pointed if it sounds meaningful or just empty and random. “Since the Kanima.” 

Stiles mouth falls open on an _oh_.”I didn’t...I guess I should have realized... I mean...that would have been scary.” 

Derek snorts, depreciative. “I don’t like losing control.” 

“Obviously.” Folding himself down onto the computer chair, Stiles gives him a long look. “But I can imagine that would be...Extra scary. And then I let you fall---” 

“You came back,” Derek cuts him off because it’s essential. It’s critical for Stiles to know, and for Derek to remember. Stiles is the first person who _came back._ He was the first person in the After (after Laura, after Peter, after becoming the Alpha) to show him that not everyone is out for themselves. It’s...it’s a big thing. “You didn’t let me fall. You kept me up for hours---” 

“Because you were the only one who could protect me---” 

“You know that’s not true.” Derek moves to sit on the edge of the bed - it’s weird to put himself there. Beds are...intimate, private. But his still stinks of Stiles, even after three days. It confuses his wolf. Humans are different. Beds aren’t so...Sacred to them. Stiles' bed smells like Malia, like Scott, and even Lydia. It’s practically communal. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to Stiles anymore.“You’d figure a way. You always do.”

“Not always.” It’s a reminder of the Void, the darkness. 

Derek can see the shadows beneath Stiles' eyes again, bruised and purple. He’s pale like he’s never seen the sun, and it makes Derek’s stomach hurt in the strangest of ways. It makes him want to fix it. “Come here,” he says, quiet and firm. He pats the bed. “Come on.”

“It’s like eight,” Stiles protests.

“It’s eleven-thirty.” Derek pats the bed again. “Come on. I don’t have anywhere else to be. And....” Derek stops to think about it for a moment. “I’m tired too.” He is - bone-weary in the quiet after a storm, where the cold kicks in, but the adrenalin left you.

As Stiles rises, the cotton plaid of his pajamas falls low on his narrow hips. He’s thin, nothing now but wiry muscle over long limbs. Where there was baby fat, there is now bone. The once-awkward angles of his body are gone, leaving him as sharp as a knife. Stiles looks like a predator. A hungry one. 

Derek stands to kick off his shoes and shove at the blankets. He waffles over his jeans - it won’t be comfortable if he wears them, but they both might be uncomfortable if he doesn’t---  
  


“I’m gonna---” Stiles begins, shifting awkwardly on the heels of his feet. “I don’t normally sleep in a shirt.” 

“Of course,” Derek agrees, settling his hands on the front of his pants. He pops the button, thumbs hooking in the belt loops. “My jeans...”

“Oh-kay.” Stiles breathes out before hauling his shirt up over his head. He stares for a

moment at Derek’s bare legs. “Okay. Actually, no, that's weird. It’s usually just your top half that’s naked. Your legs are pale. And hairy.”

Folding his jeans in half and setting them over the computer chair, Derek snorts and pulls his shirt off. “Better?” 

Flushing a little at the back of his neck, Stiles looks away. “It doesn’t suck.”

It’s the first time Derek can think of that Stiles has been even minutely open in his...appreciation. It makes Derek feel silly, standing there just in his boxer briefs. “Bed,” he grunts, folding himself down over the sheets. He situates the blankets, holding them open for Stiles. “Well?”

“I’m always the little spoon,” Stiles mutters, as he slides beneath the comforter. It’s a massive puffy thing in midnight blue; Derek feels like he’s being blanketed by a _cloud_. 

“You can be the big spoon.” The words tumble out into Stiles' hair because the kids already tucked himself up against Derek with a surprising amount of non-hesitation. He wonders, nestled in the scent of so many others if he’s not the first one to crawl into Stiles bed to sleep. The practiced way Stiles turns to his side and gives Derek room for elbows, says that he’s not. _I’m always the little spoon_ , he’d said. 

The pack takes care of its own. Derek is...proud. 

“No,” Stiles interrupts his thoughts. “It’s...nice.”

Derek wakes up to Stiles, trying to strangle himself. His hands are white around his neck, the promise of bruises already blossoming across his pale skin. He pries Stiles hands away, lets him gasp and sputter and fight and not wake up, and it’s terrifying. He’s no match for Derek’s strength, but it takes the whole of Derek’s body top pin, Stiles, down. He lays across him, hates that it feels like he’s trapping Stiles, hates that Stiles is trapped in his dream. 

“Stiles,” He says, but it’s futile. He lets go of one wrist, and Stiles lashes out, clawing at Derek’s face, horrid gasps escaping his mouth, wet and angry. Derek slaps a hand over his mouth to hush them...

And gets _bitten_ for his troubles. 

The sharp edge of Stiles teeth cut into the web between Derek’s thumb and forefinger with no effort at all. He can smell the blood, see it on Stiles lips, and it shocks him. Shocks Derek to a sudden stillness, because Stiles _bit_ him. 

He does not think when he moves to wipe the blood away, but he should know. Stiles mouth falls open just as soon as Derek’s thumb touches his lips...

And just like last time, he latches on like a hungry cub. Mouth working, hard and hurting, he sucks at Derek’s thumb, breathing noisily through his nose. His body goes lax under Derek, hand falling against the pillow, and Derek takes a moment to be just...completely lost. The fight in him is gone, given way to something even more primal. It’s not.... It’s no right, exactly...to like it. Derek’s not even sure it’s sexual. It’s not wholly sexual. 

It’s a _little_ bit sexual. 

But....Not for Stiles. For Stiles, it’s comfort. It’s hard, though, to disconnect the two. The press of Stiles tongue flips a switch Derek wasn’t aware of, and suddenly Stiles is sexual. A sexual being pressed flush against him, warm and firm, and Derek is just....suddenly very, very aware that Stiles is...

Touching him _everywhere_ with his _everything_. 

He eases Stiles back against the mattress, spooning around him like before - leaving just enough space for both his sanity and dignity. It leaves his arm trapped beneath Stiles, Derek’s thumb still tucked in his mouth. The kid is making a million tiny hurt noises that break Derek’s heart, so he does what his mother use to do and rubs at Stiles stomach, whispering hushy nonsense into the mess of his hair. “It’s okay,” he murmurs. “We’re okay.” 

**

It’s a crescent, like a moon—four marks on either side of his hand - front teeth and canines. The blood heals, dry and crusty, and when he wipes it away, there’s a _scab_ forming. It’s still there the next day, and the day after that and the day after that. When a week passes and the scab is gone, but the mark doesn’t fade, just turns shiny and silver-white - Derek begins to _wonder_. 

It doesn't make him worry, though - and that should be alarming enough. 

**

It’s weird. There is still a line that sits between them, a particular sort of strangeness that keeps Derek from crawling into Stiles bed _every_ night. He wonders when he’s not there who pins Stiles arms down gently, who pries his mouth open when he bites his tongue. He worries when he doesn’t know. Stiles is a casualty he didn’t expect; both victim and villain. Derek knows what it’s like to swim in a pool of guilt you didn’t fill yourself. It’s hard. Watching Stiles sink in it is even harder. 

He sleeps more comfortably, knowing Stiles is sleeping easier. It doesn’t even feel strange anymore. It’s pack - taking comfort in the security that everyone is well. Derek lost that sense of knowing in the fire, and grew a ferocious dependency on having Laura within scenting distance, because of it. Only to have that ripped away as well. This pack, though, they’re both optimistic and bitter. It’s who they are, what they’re made of, the hodge-podge collection of orphans and loneliness. Scott, bitten but true. Lydia, pragmatic banshee. Allison, who knows what madness is. Isaac, who knows fear but does not fall. Malia, who understands what it means to be wild. Jordan, who has yet to put a name to his self, but has pledged his loyalty regardless. Kira and Liam, both something like cubs. They’re bright and earnest, learning themselves amidst a mess. Stiles...Stiles, who knows what it means to be the villain. 

And somewhere in there, Derek found a place. 

Derek will protect them, all of them. Stiles said it. Derek protects. _That's_ where Derek fits. Derek is the protector, just like his mother had been. It was never about being Alpha, never about power, or strength. He’d learned that in dying. It was about putting the pack before himself. Before power, before territory, status. That’s what pack was. 

***

Stiles looks terrible at the next pack meeting. His hair is flat, and his face is waxen. He smells sour, like sweat and something else. There's a _thing_ eating away at the edges of the forest and eating, chewing at the grass and roots in a way that is very much not natural. So far, there’s no sign of dark intentions, but it leaves the pack restless and weary anyway. 

Scott sends them away with a warning to buddy-up and stays away from the woods. He and Derek will patrol together in the morning when the first light breaks the trees. They trickle out, one by one; Derek holds Stiles back. 

“Stay.” He tilts his head toward the couch. This is new. They don’t invite each other over - Stiles has never asked Derek to stay. They just don’t. Until....Derek does. “Buddy system, remember?” It’s not the first time they’ve played Buddies. Since Scott was bitten, it’s somewhat of a common occurrence. Whether they flock naturally to each other or are shoved together by the cosmic universe, Derek couldn’t say. 

Stiles' eyes drift to Derek’s bedroom door, but there’s no hesitation in his face. “If you insist,” he says, with all the magnanimous ass-itude he’s well known for. “I need to call my dad.” 

Derek fucks around in the kitchen while Stiles fiddles with the phone. It’s more of an illusion of privacy than anything else, but it seems courteous not to offer a least that much. 

“Yeah,” Stiles mutters, sounding for all the world the petulant teenager Derek first met in him. “At Derek's.” 

_“I didn’t know you and Derek were that close.”_

Derek’s hands still over the sack of popcorn kernels he’d been considering. There’s an edge to the Sheriff's voice he’d rather not understand. He’s not sure Stiles gets it. 

“We’re BFFs in near-death-experiences. What could bond two bro’s closer than buckets of blood and gut?” 

_“That so?”_ The Sheriff hums, loud enough that it grates over Derek’s skin. _“That loft even have a guest room?”_

The uptick in Stiles heart is proof enough that he’s caught his father's connotations. Derek...doesn’t hold his breath, but it’s hard not too. “Dad, that's not...” 

_“He sleeps in your bed sometimes.”_

Derek...Derek hadn’t known he’d been caught. He indeed sleeps deeper at Stiles’. Stiles' house has always been a place his wolf has gone when it’s hurt or frightening. There’s safety there he’s never really understood. He trusts Stiles, trusts his father too. 

“And sometimes I sleep in his,” Stiles admits, but there’s steel in his voice. “It’s hard to be afraid of anything when you have a werewolf guarding your bed. Everyone sleeps in my bed, sometimes because of that. Please make me feel weirder about it, though.”

_“Okay, okay.”_ There’s surrender in the Sheriffs' voice, a white flag of peace. _“I trust you know what you’re about, son. And....if Derek Hale is what it takes for you to fall asleep, well I think you could do worse. Invite him to breakfast. ”_

“Dad,” Stiles whines, voice shifting back to petulant. “It’s not like that. He just...He doesn’t let me get too deep in my mind. He pulls me back.” 

_“Alright. If you say so, kiddo, I’ll see you in the morning.”_ There’s a pause. _“Invite him over, Stiles. I doubt anyone made him pancakes in a long time.”_ Another pause and Derek thinks it’s Stiles who will speak next, but it’s not. _“You know, I meant...I meant that sometimes Derek sleeps in your bed when your not in it, kid.”_

Derek has the air popper out on the counter and plugged in by the time Stiles pads into the kitchen, phone stowed away in the depths of his pockets. “It’s cool,” he says, shrugging like he doesn’t know Derek heard every word. He knows. They both do. “Popcorn?” 

“I rented Guardians of the Galaxy.” He’d rented it for Stiles, who had complained loudly and at length about missing it in theaters (while a thousand-year-old Fox spirit possessed him). Stiles stares at him for a long time, eyes to dark in the unlit kitchen. It makes his pupils wide, makes Derek think of a time when Stiles wasn’t Stiles. “Grab some drinks?” 

Instead of the expected snark or commentary, Derek gets a question: 

“Is this a date?” 

He should turn the popper off. The bowl is full, and fluffy white kernels are spilling over the edge, onto the counter, the floor. “I...Don’t know how to answer that.” It’s date _like_. Date-adjacent. Derek planned for it. But Stiles and Derek aren’t like that, no matter that Derek knows what the heat of Stiles' tongue feels like pressed against his skin. He knows the press of his body, how it fits against Derek’s own. It colors his thoughts now, Stiles' body. How the baby-fat is gone, the awkward too-long limbs. Stiles isn’t done growing, but he’s close. He’s...grown. Derek’s noticed. It’s made him think about things. Do things without thinking at all. Like movies and popcorn, and quiet lofts and couches. “It’s movies and popcorn....” 

“And snuggling,” Stiles accuses, but his eyes are bright in a way that Derek has inexplicably missed. “Because that’s a thing we do now.” 

Derek shuts off the popper. Stray kernels crunch beneath his restless feet. “We don’t _have_ too.” Nobody was twisting his arm after all. And he wasn’t precisely kicking Derek out of his bed. 

“You heard what I told my dad.” He raises an eyebrow as if daring Derek to deny it. “Wolf under the blanket is better than a bat under the bed any day.” 

“I’ve seen you swing a bat.” Derek scoops up the bowl, and feels weird in his skin, in his kitchen, where Stiles Stilinski is asking if this is a date, and Derek’s not sure if it’s not. “It’s nothing to scoff at.” 

“Come on, weirdo.” Stiles grabs drinks from the fridge and leads them towards the couch. They don’t clean the spill of kernels on the floor. “I’m _exhausted_.” 

Now that _something_ has been acknowledged, the atmosphere shifts. There is a certain sense of awkwardness as they settle in on the couch. Stiles leans into Derek, twitching where there arms touch, as Derek hauls an old afghan across both their lap. 

“Sit the fuck still,” he snaps after a minute, throwing an arm over Stiles' shoulders to pin him in place. Stiles is not small - they’re of equal height - and it twists Derek’s arm up awkwardly. 

Stiles wriggles down, hunching until his shoulder is buried in Derek’s armpit, head low enough to lay on Derek’s chest, were he inclined. Not that he is, of course. They don’t do that. But then, they don’t do this either. Except...that they _do_. Stiles wriggles again. “I have to _pee_.” 

Popcorn halfway to his mouth, Derek scowls. “Are you fucking with me?” 

“...Yeah.” Looking up, Stiles smiles. Smiles with his teeth and his eyes and his _soul_. And it’s been so long since Derek’s seen that it kind of hurts his heart. His fist clenches around his popcorn, turning it to crumbly dust. 

_I could kiss him_ , Derek thinks randomly if _this was a date._

Like he’s reading Derek’s mind, Stiles speaks. “It could be,” he says, eyes staring intently at Chris Pratt as he moonwalks to eighties classics. “A date I mean. It wouldn’t suck.” 

_***_

Lee Pace is freaking out on screen when Stiles catches Derek’s hand in his own. “What's this?” he asks, yanking on Derek’s arm, the one trapped behind Stile's back. “It looks like tee---” 

“Teeth?” Derek eyes him considers lying, and then violently decides against it. “You bite.” 

Stiles blinks at him. “I bit you? When did I bite you?” 

“In your sleep.” He doesn’t say when - weeks ago, why is the mark still there, a scar-like Derek’s never had before, what does it mean, because it means something--- “You were...Growling. I know you don’t like to worry about your father, so I tried to quiet you, and you bit me.” 

“Shit.” Staring at him to close for comfort, Stiles frowns. “Sorry. I use to bite when I was little? I was always getting sent home. I bit Jackson in the second grade.” He shrugs. “My mouth has a mind of it it's own.” 

Derek, better than most, understands the deep-seated nature of instincts. “I’m aware,” he says dryly, leaning back into the couch. “Now shut up.” 

***

Derek wakes to the DVD credit screen. It’s late, moon high in the sky, and lost behind clouds. Shadows play over the floor of the loft through the slats in the blinds. Stiles is sleeping peacefully beside him, drooling into the fabric of his t-shirt. “Stiles,” Derek murmurs, shouldering into him. “Hey, c’mon.” He doesn’t know how to say let's _get into bed_ without sounding all wrong. “Stiles---” 

Stiles looks up, eyes wide but face blank. Derek is momentarily terrified - it’s like looking at the Nogitsune all over again. But Stiles shakes it away, blinking wildly. “Wha---” 

“C’mon,” Derek says again, pushing himself up off the couch, and hauling a sleep-addled Stiles with him. They strip down to their boxers in silence; Derek folds his shirt over the chair in the corner, Stiles leaves his in a heap to trip on in the morning. 

“Hypothetically speaking,” Stiles slurs, as Derek settles himself around him like a living cocoon. “If this were a date....” 

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Derek gets it. With an arm under the pillow and another over Stiles's ribs, Derek presses a kiss to the back of his neck. As far as declarations go, it’s a terrible one but...

Stiles sleeps soundly.

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I shouldn’t be so rough with you.” The way its said - it feels like it’s out of nowhere even though its been a long time coming. Derek speaks with a weight in his voice Stiles can’t fully measure. “I forget you’re not a wolf. If I break you, you stay broken.” 
> 
> “You forget I’m not a wolf?” He isn’t sure, but Stiles thinks that might be a compliment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckle in and accept the fact that this story will probably not go anywhere you expect.

He’s not asleep when Derek slips into his room, weeks later. It’s not always Derek, but Stiles will never admit Derek’s his favorite. Scott’s a close second, Boyd is a shockingly great cuddler, but Erica and Lydia _aren’t_ on the list. It isn’t so much that they’re squirmy and he’s a teenage boy, it’s more ...

Stiles never thought he’d miss getting inappropriately timed boners. Shit, at this point, he’d settle for a fear boner. Deaton says it’s the trauma that he’s still _healing_ . The Nogitsune took a lot of things from him, and apparently the ability to get an erection was one of them. And Stiles doesn’t even have it in him to get upset because of priorities, man. He’s not even sure he _deserves_ boners, to be honest. 

Derek slides in through his window even though he’s more than welcome to use the _door_. Stiles’ dad likes Derek now. He also keeps an eye on Derek, makes sure he’s eating, make sure his living spaces are up to habitable code. He even makes Derek update his address on his driver’s license. But yeah - he likes Derek. Says he feels safer, knowing Derek’s keeping tabs on the kids, which is so phenomenally ridiculous considering how many tabs Stiles has had to keep on Derek. Stiles is practically Derek’s _handler_. Honestly _,_ though - Stiles is more than happy to pass that responsibility over to his dad. 

Stiles says nothing, just throws open the covers. Derek leaves his boots by the window in a neat little line. A warm breeze plays through the sheer curtains, and he strips off his shirt too. That’s fine. That’s more than fine; Stiles likes to foster a welcoming environment. Comfort is crucial. Stiles himself is not wearing a shirt; it’s a nice night for it. It’s not an issue. They’re guys. They’re men. 

It’s just a lot of skin. 

Derek’s kind of tan now too, and his abs still each have their own set of abs. He kicks his jeans off, revealing some shockingly athletic-looking underwear, but Stiles suppose that’s fair - being a werewolf is shockingly athletic. Alternatively, _Derek_ makes being a werewolf shockingly athletic. Either way, Stiles wasn’t expecting Under Armour. He leaves his socks on, which is both adorable and psychotic. Stiles already peeled his socks off with his toes to be abandoned between the sheets with all the rest of them.

Derek doesn’t jostle him, sliding in over the sheets with easy care. It’s after three in the morning, and he looks as tired as Stiles feels. Stiles shoves the good pillow at him in sympathy. “You okay?” 

Derek rolls over, and faceplants into Stiles pillow. “Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbles, raising his head enough to squint at Stiles. “Figured you were up.” 

“You figured right.” He’s just trying to parse out what next to say - again, it’s after three in the morning when Derek reaches out to hook an arm over his waist and haul him bodily closer. It is not the first time he’s suspected this alternative sleeping arrangement was mutually beneficial. It makes it easier if he believes it is, anyway. 

Derek’s got his own demons, after all. They might not be literal demons, like Stiles demons, but he’s not about to devalue them because of it. If he’s learned nothing, he’s learned - humans are the worst monsters of all. 

Humans made the Nogistune what it was. Humans fed it. 

And so they do this - yes, they do this, but usually, Stiles in the little spoon. They’re never naked chest to naked chest. Was it--- was it something Derek had wanted? Stile feels his heart rise, the subtle sweat of panic breaking out across his skin. This is different, and different is _wrong_. This might be a dream, he realizes. It might be a nightmare. He is keenly aware of his fingertips and how they feel sinking into Derek’s open stomach cavity. He’s distinctly aware of the exact temperature of his guts, as they spill out in wet squelches. 

It’s probably a nightmare. 

Derek’s hold eases immediately. “Sorry.” 

Which does not fucking help. Now Stiles is half-certain somethings wrong. Derek’s still not big on apologizing. But he holds his hand up between them, fingers spread. Just for fun, Stiles assumes by Derek’s little grin, he lets his claws drop. “How many?” 

“Five.” One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five little werewolf claws, held between them and viscerally comforting. His mesely human fingertips are no match. Stiles knows what they can do - what Derek’s done for him. Five little werewolf claws shouldn’t put him at ease, but they do. They do. “Sorry.” 

“I shouldn’t be so rough with you.” The way it’s said - it feels like it’s out of nowhere even though it’s been a long time coming. Derek speaks with a weight in his voice Stiles can’t adequately measure. “I forget you’re not a wolf. If I break you, you stay broken.” 

“You forget I’m not a wolf?” He isn’t sure, but Stiles thinks that _might_ be a compliment. It makes him feel oddly warm.

“Sometimes,” Derek admits, in a small way, under the comfort of Stiles blankets. “You’d have made a good one.” His eyes flutter closed. How long had he slept alone? Derek needs this as much as he does. He’s lost so fucking much; Stiles has seen it all. The Nogitsune could hardly resist the absolute rage in Derek’s heart. “You tired?” 

He’d been a little in love with Derek, the Nogitsune. In its own way. It hungered for despair, despair to meet its own, and Stiles suspected...it came very close when it met Derek. 

“I could sleep.” He rolls over though, carefully, and feels Derek’s hand snake over his chest again. Stiles wonders when this stopped being weird. It was never really weird to Derek; werewolves are _all_ touchers. He forgets to wonder about anything as Derek presses in, all sixteen miles of tan, warm skin flush against Stiles’s spine. It’s jarring because it’s new, and Stiles is a little ashamed of how nice it feels. How novel. How previously uninvestigated the press of bare skin against bare skin is to him. 

“So sleep.” Derek’s not soft, not even particularly comfortable. But he’s warm, and the weight of his arm is a strange, tangible teather Stiles has come to trust. He has his claws out, resting light against Stiles’s stomach. They’re not sharp, nothing like razors. No - what makes them dangerous has always been the power behind them. The promise. And that promise is resting lightly against some of Stiles’ softest parts.

He’s never felt safer in his life. He’d like to meet the boogie monster ready to square up with the werewolf in his bed. It breaks something off, in his heart or his head, but Stiles realizes for the first time in a very long time...he’s safe. 

Even so... he's not...he wasn't... he's never...

He gets hard. Just a _little_ hard, yeah, just a little bit, but it’s still too much all at once. He’s got no business sporting a semi at three-thirty in the morning with a werewolf in his bed. Let alone sporting one because of said werewolf. He sucks in a sharp, shocked breath about the same time Derek does, so...no chance in Derek not noticing. 

Fucking werewolves. Werewolves, Stiles has been made aware, can, in fact, smell your dick. You are also now burdened with that information. Misery loves company. 

Derek doesn’t move where he’s sunk into the mattress beside Stiles, and gradually, he relaxes. “You good? You need like...to go take a shower or something? Or were you gonna...try to sleep?” 

“Should I shower?” He’s mostly given up on being self-conscious about the way he smells. “Sorry if I’m disgusting. I can shower.” 

“It’s not disgusting. We’ve been over this.” Derek pulls the sheets up higher around them. “It smells like you. Just more of you. It’s fine.” He drums his claws over the soft, sensitive skin of Stiles’ very ticklish stomach, the dick. “‘Sides, if everyone’s respective parts smelled off-putting, werewolves would have stopped fucking a long time ago.” 

“Fine, that does make me feel better.” Stiles settles his arm over Derek’s because there really isn’t a less awkward way to situate himself. “I’ve met werewolves, and while I’m not an expert, current evidence suggests that they _love_ fucking. If given the opportunity, it’s all they would do.” 

“Well. You’ve met a lot of teenage werewolves,” Derek corrects dryly. Stiles can tell he’s already half asleep. “You gonna shower?”

“I’m afraid acknowledging at all will scare it away, and I gotta be real - it’s like a sasquatch. A lot of people... well okay, _some_ people... believe it’s real, but no one’s ever actually seen it in the wild.” A startled laugh escapes him. His life is _absurd_. He does not want to have his boner this close to Derek, he does not. Derek is super hot and deserves better. Why is he so embarrassing? “Sorry, it’s been like eight months since...This. Has happened to me.” Because getting boners around Derek is hardly a new problem but it hadn’t really occurred to him to worry since...you know. _Everything_. It hadn’t come up. Heh. “Didn’t realize it was something I needed to start worrying about again.”

Derek ignores his apology entirely because he’s a bro, a good bro willing to ignore Stiles boner completely. Charming, really. An absolute King. “That implies there are blurry pictures of it on the internet.” 

“I’ve made some poor choices, yeah.” There are, in fact, a few photos of him kicking around. Just really, really poorly thought out attempts at Tinder. And Grindr. He’s a curious boy, sue him. He never showed his face because somehow he convinced himself no one would notice he’s _clearly_ a teenager by his body alone. Hilarious. His accounts had both been flagged within four days. “You live, and you learn, and your dick stays immortalized on the internet anyway.” 

Derek _snorts,_ just a soft wet breath, over Stile’s shoulder. It’s a laugh. He’s laughing. What an absurd thing, Stiles thinks, for Derek to laugh at. He rubs his jaw over Stiles' shoulder. It’s a nuzzle, is what it is. He’s nuzzling Stiles. But Stiles knows not to call it that. And maybe he really does forget Stiles isn’t a werewolf, because Derek puts his teeth on the back of Stiles’ neck and Stiles _knows_ what it means, it’s like putting a puppy in its place. He’s done it before. It's comfort. It’s pack. It’s what belonging means, and Stiles is violently reminded of all the ways he’s killed everyone he loves. 

Claws

All the ways he’s killed, Derek. Stiles knows what Derek’s blood tastes like, knows precisely how warm it spills, knows what it’s like to enjoy it on his skin, smeared like war paint. He knows what Derek’s heart feels like, dead in his palm. 

His own heart beats hard, a solid thud in his chest, a hot sort of anxiety, an oil spill of shame bleeds through like a new layer of sweat on his soul. Derek presses himself tighter against his back. Stiles trusts Derek knows what an anxiety attack smells like, but he’s not entirely certain why Derek’s hand is sliding up his throat, palm cupping his chin, thumb pressing deep against his tongue---

Stiles shudders with the whole of his body and melts. There’s no better way to describe it. He melts, a little boneless mess, and why the fucking _hell_ does Derek know that? Stiles hasn’t sucked his thumb since he was eight, not since his-

Derek breathes, deep and smooth, ruffling Stiles hair. “Sleep,” he grumbles, and his arm is heavy where it lays across Stiles body. “Just sleep.” 

Stiles thinks - there is so much they don’t talk about. So much blood and guts and terror and immeasurable life debt between them they don’t talk about. The pack is a tangle, and Derek and Stiles are tied up in red strings. This could very quickly be just another thing they don’ talk bout. Maybe he could just go to sleep, Derek’s thumb tucked snug in his mouth, body alarmingly void of tightly coiled anxiety and brain eager to follow suit. 

Except he’s still a little hard, and he’s not sure that falls under categories they don’t talk about. He makes a noise, and Derek’s there, pushing him into the mattress and pinning him down with the bulk of his weight. 

“M’tired,” Derek speaks quietly into the curve of Stiles' shoulder. “And I know you’re tired too. Just sleep.” 

And as he falls asleep, he wonders about a lot of things. He wonders about the curve of his very fragile spine, bent to fit the concave curl of Derek’s body. He thinks about the hand, cupped lazily over his face, the claws at this throat, inside and out. Derek still has his _claws_ out, half asleep already with...parts of him...technically speaking...inside of Stiles. He thinks about the rise and fall of Derek’s breath and the teeth at his neck. It’s soothing; something about being restrained is now _soothing_. Derek will protect him, yeah, Stiles knows that. But he hasn’t been afraid of anything except himself in a very long time. 

It’s soothing because Stiles knows Derek won’t let him hurt anyone else. And he isn’t sure he could trust anyone else with that burden. 

Derek kisses the curve of his neck. He's done it before, a few times since that first time. The balls in Stiles court now, and it's okay if he's not ready. Derek's not going anywhere. 

He sleeps, fitfully, restlessly. He stirs and twitches and whimpers and every single time, Derek’s weight shifts, holding him down a little tighter until he’s blanketed again in two-hundred pounds of werewolf once more, the whole wide world safe from Stiles. 

Anyway - Stiles already said Derek was his favorite. Let’s not make a thing out of it. 

***

Part of healing from the Nogistune is dropping out of high school. 

It doesn’t exactly fill him with joy _,_ but he can’t go back. Just being in the school fills him with dread, with anxiety. The whole town is stained in blood now, blood no one else can see. Stiles is never free of it, but the school...it’s hard to be there. Given his _miraculous_ recovery from his ‘brain disorder’, no one seems surprised. His father makes it happen, and Stiles signs up to take his GED within two weeks, and it’s okay. It’s whatever. He’s a highschool dropout. Cool. 

He’d sort of made peace with never going to college. Stiles can’t even sleep alone. It’s arbitrary, Stiles knows that. Diplomas. Degrees. It’s all an arbitrary measurement of knowledge. Stiles spent fuck-knows how long rattling around in a demon brain while a demon rattled around in his body. He’s learned some things. Some things just stayed. But there’s knowledge inside him, deep and dark. There’s nothing high school can teach him he doesn’t already know. 

“Something is going on with the water on the Northside of the property.” Derek’s standing on his porch in his black leather jacket, Camaro idling on the curb. “You wanna come to check it out with me?” He doesn’t bother asking if Stiles is free. No need to add insult to injury and all that. Again - Derek’s a _bro_ now. 

It’s been a couple of months now since that whole thing happened and true to the agreement they did not verbalize, they don’t talk about it. It’s not a thing-thing, it’s just a thing, and Derek’s eyebrows had told him there were worse things the only time Stiles did try to bring it up. 

Derek raises said eyebrows, and oh yeah, he asked a question. “Uh--- Yeah. Yeah. Let me grab my shit. The water you said?” 

“There’s a creek that breaks off a river running north into Portland. It cuts over the North-East corner of the Hale Property and feeds into a reservoir out that way. The Alpha of the pack bordering ours that way called me because...” He grimaces, just a little - it’s the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, Stiles thinks. “They’ve had three bears wash up in the river in the last month.” 

“Bears,” Stiles repeats, as Derek follows him into the house and up the stairs. “Dead bears?” 

“Parts of dead bears,” Derek amends, grabbing Stiles' backpack off his bedpost. “There’s no scent trail and a lot of things don’t leave one but that close to a river? Whatever it was, it came from the water.” He hesitates a little. “One of the cubs went missing last week while playing near the river with her older sister. A little girl.” 

Stiles takes a deep breath and wonders what life was like when he thought it was just perverts and predators that kidnapped kids. He doesn’t really remember anymore. The world is an ugly place. “water-dwelling bear eaters don't bring anything to mind.” He crams his phone into his pocket. “I’ll research on the way. It’s like a two-hour drive, right?” 

“We can grab lunch on the way back.” Derek’s already heading for the door, grabbing Stiles spare charger off his dresser as he goes. It makes Stiles blush for the dumbest reasons because it’s almost guaranteed he'd have forgotten himself. 

Derek knows that about him. 

It’s very Derek, though. The man couldn’t see a bigger picture with a fucking telescope, but he was almost violently good at sussing out the small stuff. Werewolves, in general, were good at throwing otherwise hidden clues at you. Still, it’s usually “he smelled like bagels” and “he lied about buying a clown costume” and not always overly useful or even relevant. Derek isn’t quiet because he’s creepy. Amendment - Derek isn’t quiet _just_ because he’s creepy. He’s quiet because he’s ... watching. 

Yeah, okay, that still sounds creepy.

Stiles grabs him by the elbow as they step out onto the porch. “We’re going to figure it out, Derek. It’ll be alright.” 

“Sometimes I think the Hale lands are cursed,” Derek admits, looking at Stiles like maybe he’ll confirm it. “There’s so much blood spilled here.” 

“We can’t stop it all,” Stiles says, fingers still curled into the leather sleeve of Derek’s jacket. “But we can always try.”

***

Stiles is pretty sure it’s a _kappa_. “There is a lot of documentation suggesting Kappa’s could drag whole horses into the water.” He does a little google math, three thousand tabs already open on his phone. “A big black bear weighs less than a small horse. They smell like water, fish, nothing that would stand out. They’re small; they could sustain in a creek.” 

***

“Not a Kappa!” 

And yeah - it’s not a kappa. Derek didn’t need to tell Stiles that, from where he’s caught in the claws of what is absolutely a fucking _giant goddamn lizard monster_. 

“It’s a--- It’s a---” and the word is right there, the _knowledge_ is right there, dark at the edges of his mind at the line, the apparent deviation, the stain the Nogistune left. Stiles knows its not there anymore, knows it’s all just him, but the things that it left still scare him. But right now isn’t the time. “It’s a _hanzaki.”_

“Okay!” Derek calls, tumbling into the creek as the dragon swipes at him. Derek dodges the blow, rolling onto the muddy banks. The dragon isn’t huge; this is a creek after all. It’s long and thin, body undulating like a snake. “How do I kill it?” 

“Listen, I know how the Demon would kill it----” Suddenly, there’s a cry. A human cry. A human _crying_. 

It’s a _child_. The missing child. A little girl, a fucking child - maybe six or seven- standing in the water, half-hidden in the weeds. She’s caught in the thick, gluey muck carpeting the bank. She’s got her little claws out, her little tiny fangs dropped, and she looks so fucking scared, Stiles is immediately certain he’d burn the fucking world down for her. He doesn’t even like kids. She’s just tiny. 

“Oh, what the fuck.” Stiles is stumbling toward the creek in a horrifying rush. The girl is crying now, reaching for him, but no matter how hard he pulls, he can’t free her. It’s futile, either he is, in fact, a spaghetti armed weak bitch, or there’s magical intervention at play, but she isn’t moving, not a single inch. “I’m going to get you out,” he promises, gently prying her arms from around him. “But I need that guy over there to help me, okay? He’s stronger. He’s a werewolf too. But uh--- you know, he’s busy. I have to help him so I can help you, okay?” She sobs a watery _Kay_ in response, and Stiles hates himself for leaving her there, little and alone. Frantic, he rips the knife out of the leather sheath on his hip. “Here, take this. If it comes near you, I want you to stab it in a soft spot, okay. Eyeballs. Belly. Throat. Face. Can you do that? I bet you’re really strong. Can you be brave?” 

“Stab it. Okay. Okay.” She nods again, tears streaming down her face and holding a knife as big as her forearm. Stiles... Stiles is gonna get her out.

Derek’s not doing so hot, though. He’s fast and aggressive on the banks, but there’s simply too much monster to Derek ratio. It doesn’t have anything so simple as scales, no. Instead, it seems to be coated in a weird, slimy, semi-permeable layer of _skin_. Derek’s nails can’t seem to sink past it. It’s not even _bleeding_. 

“Weakspot!” He calls and yeah, that’s Stiles' department. “What’s the weak spot?”

“Uh---Uh---- Underbelly!” What else, what else, what else. “It can’t leave the water! It can’t cross the banks. Stay out of the water. I think it can---” 

“Too late!” Derek calls back, a roar in his voice, and that answers that - totally not Stiles spaghetti arms. “Why am I stuck!” He’s half shifted, striking at the dragon who raises itself like a snake. The creek is a froth of mucky waves, and the little girl is doing her best not to cry. “Stiles!” 

“I don’t know, man - whatever power it’s using, it probably didn’t work on Demons! I have no reason to know!” As soon as he says it, he feels sick to his stomach. If he steps into those waters and doesn’t get stuck? He will _not_ be okay. “I’m thinking! I’m thinking!”

“What do I do?” Derek’s straining against the muck as the dragon darts at him, dodging the swipe of his open claw. It’s bleeding now, just a tiny bit under its eye, a dark, deep gash. Derek’s putting up a good fight, grappling in the muck, and he manages to get his arms around the creature's middle. It writhes in protest, hissing shrilly as Derek does his best to crush the thing in half. Stiles watches Derek stumble forward in the creek and looks back just in time to watch the girl scramble free from the banks. 

It’s tangible - Stiles feels the air change. No, no, no, no. There’s no reason to lift the magic, whatever it was, not unless it wanted to----“Derek, let it go. Let it go and get out of the water, Derek, don’t let it----” 

But it’s too late; it’s already dragging Derek back into the creek, pinning him face-first into the muck. Hey!” Stiles cries, throwing a fucking rock at it. “Hey - you fuck! Come here! Come and get me!” It hisses at him, mouth open wide., but doesn’t move from where it’s _standing on Derek._

Soft spots, soft spots, soft spots---- it moves like a snake, but it’s not a snake no, maybe an eel, no, too many legs---

A salamander. It reminds Stiles of a salamander. 

The darkness in his mind has opinions on that; _cut the beast in half._

Stiles remembers when he was little, he flipped a log in the back yard and found, to his five-year-old delight, a bright orange salamander. He’d quickly reached for it with his tiny chubby baby hands and promptly tore the thing in half. It was one of the more horrifying stories of his otherwise charmed childhood. Ignorance really is bliss. 

Salamanders are actually _regenerative_ creatures; Stiles isn’t about to take a chance on it. He needs to cut its head off. There isn’t much that can live through that—Derek’s drowning. The kid is crying. Stiles has a machete in his backpack, and then in his hand. His feet are already moving him. He’s already scrambling up the nearest tree, the one with the roots that spill out from eroded soil and into the water. He climbs as high as the twisted, tangled branches will let him. 

A cold sweat breaks out across his skin as he tests each step along the branch, feels the dip and sway and strain. _C’mon_ , he thinks, _You’re an oak._ _You’re strong. Don’t let me fall. Don’t break. Just get me as far out over the water as possible._ Below him, the hanzaki gleefully splashes in the water, stomping Derek into the muck. Stiles suspects, if they turned up the silt and sand of the creek bottom, they’d find more people who met the same fate. 

He jumps. 

A scream escapes him, ragged and furious. He is furious. Derek is such a _fuck_. What would he do without Stiles? He’d die. He’d get boot stomped by a salamander and fucking die. The curved metal blade tears through the soft, slimy skin in jagged, fleshy rips. It’s not a clean-cut and the beast writhes and screeches, flailing in the water, lashing out at him, but it’s weak now, half severed and bleeding out. He feels thin claws tear across his face, but he doesn’t feel a thing. He swings his machete again and again. He saws into the beast, hacking away at it until he cuts through. It falls in two parts, heavy thuds that shake the ground, and Derek rises between the frothy, bloody waves. 

He stares at Stiles with wide eyes, creek water running down his face in rivets from his hair. “Did you--- How did you?” 

“I climbed up that tree, and I jumped, and I chopped it in half,” Stiles recites, very evenly, very mechanically like that’s not insane at all. “With a gardening tool, I bought at Home Depot for seven dollars on clearance.” His voice goes a little shrill in the end. His dad actually had to buy it for him. The cashier had refused to sell it to him because he’s a minor. 

Stiles sort of gets the apprehension now. He just sawed a whole living creature in half with it. 

“Get it together; you’re freaking out the kid,” Derek says, but he’s hands brush Stiles forearms as he passes, and Stiles feels the pulling tickle of Derek checking him for pain. 

Werewolves. They can never just ask. 

“Hi,” Derek says to the girl, kneeling in the sticky grass beside the water. “My names Derek Hale. That’s Stiles. Are you Abby?” She nods with big eyes, hands curled up over themselves, and pressed against her chest. “We were sent to find you, Abby. So we could take you back to your parents.” Stiles thinks he could probably get pregnant just for watching this all happen. Adorable bullshit. Derek takes the knife and hands it back to Stiles.

“The mermaid said that someone would come,” she tells them, very solemnly. “They tried to save me from that lizard monster, but one of them got hurt.” 

“Mermaids?” Stiles echos, but he’s not about to tell the kid she’s seeing things. Besides, this creek does technically connect to the ocean. Weirder things have happened. “Huh. Well, I need to take some pictures and get some samples. Deaton would never forgive me if I didn’t, and there is nothing in the Bestiary like this. Do you think we have to dispose of the body? Is it irresponsible to leave it for just anyone to find?” 

Derek’s holding the little girl's hand. “I’ll talk to the bordering tribe about handling it as a courtesy,” He digs his phone out of his pocket, safe in it’s bullet-proof, water-proof, werewolf proof phone case that cost like eighty fucking dollars but is the only thing keeping this fucking pack together. “I’ll call their Alpha. Get whatever shit you need.” 

Stiles does, taking pictures first, up close, far away, next to his shoe for size reference. He’s very scientific about it... Then he collects plastic baggies of anything Deaton might go ooooh over; a hunk of the semipermeable flesh layer. Some teeth. Some claw. He packs it all away very gently and hopes to god it doesn’t burst. Jars, he tells himself. Next time he’ll bring jars. 

The Rosebloom Pack meets them where the creek splits off from the river. Derek lets Abby’s hand go so she can sprint across the clearing and into her parents' arms. They come in a group of nine, and Stiles feels the significance even if he doesn’t understand it. They look tired and ragged - like perhaps they haven’t left these woods since Abby went missing.

“Derek,” an older woman greets, barefoot in skirts of dark purple and brown. Around her neck are scarves and shawls and beads and braided leather cords. There are feathers twined in her hair. She doesn’t greet him with a handshake or a hug. She merely nods her head. Derek returns the gesture solemnly. “On behalf of the Rosebloom Pack, thank you for saving Abigail. We are in your debt.” 

“ _He_ didn’t,” Abby protests, peeking out from her mother's arms. “That one did. The human boy. He tried to get me out of the mud, but the magic wouldn’t let him. So he climbed a tree and jumped and landed on the dragon and cut it in half with his sword! Just like in the stories!” 

“It uh...It’s a machete.” He’s still holding it, absurdly. “And um. It was more like...a giant angry salamander. They’re called _hanzaki_. I think...they mostly smell like mud. So you wouldn't have found a scent trail.”

The Alpha looks at Derek for confirmation, a grey brow raised. She has bare feet, dirty and calloused like they’ve never worn shoes in their life. Stiles never met a wolf that wasn’t somehow related to Derek _,_ and now that he thinks about it - the Hales are probably not a good definition of Wolf and Pack culture anymore, all things considered. It makes him curious. “The human? Interesting.” 

The _Human_. 

“This is Stiles; he’s the McCall-Hale pack Emissary.” Derek sounds - and this is embarrassing - _very_ proud. “He’s training under the former Hale Emissary, Alan Deaton.” 

Stiles stares at him because --- what? But he knows better than to correct Derek in front of another pack and so he just stands there and looks stupid instead. Better him than Derek. 

Alpha Rosebloom looks skeptical, to say the least. “This child?” She steps forward, and Stiles holds his place the best he can. It’s not easy; Stiles hasn’t met very many Alpha’s who haven’t tried to kill him. “He’s so young. And Alan Deaton abjured taking an apprentice after the fire.” 

“He renounced his position and his title, in respect for my mother’s death and the loss of her pack.” Derek chooses his words carefully, but without anger. They’ve all grown a little, honestly, they have. “And then he found a better way to honor her.” 

“Because the Hale Pack never really ended.” Alpha Rosebloom touches Derek’s face, and Derek, to his credit, allows her. “You look like Talia, you know. She’d be very proud of you, Alpha Hale.” 

“Our Alpha is Scott McCall,” Derek says evenly. He flashes Beta eyes - still hauntingly blue. “I’m not an Alpha anymore.”

“But you call yourself the McCall-Hale pack?” 

“Because our Alpha asked us too,” Stiles interjects - there’s really only so much whumping Derek can take in a day, and he just had his ass handed to him by a salamander, he doesn’t need an old lady to add emotional whiplash. “Scott’s a True Alpha. And a good one. But Derek didn’t lose this pack to Scott. He gave it to him. This was Derek’s pack, and he lost it to save his sister. Not because he was a bad Alpha. He lost it because he’s a Good Alpha. And our pack recognizes and honors that.” 

“Emissary Stilinski,” Alpha Rosebloom says, turning to him. Her skirts sway in the breeze, and the sun catches in her glossy white hair. She’s not like any Alpha’s Stiles met, but that doesn’t fill him with joy. Her smile, though...Her smile transforms her. “Alan Deaton chose well in you. You saved our cub today, and that alone indebted us to you. I would move great mountains for anyone of my pack. A sentiment I think you understand.” 

Stiles does his best to demure at her lack of aggression or even suspicion.“Of course.” 

“Abigail is my granddaughter.” She smiles a little deeper when Derek goes preternaturally still beside him, in surprise. “Ah - yes. You understand. You’ve saved the future Alpha of the Rosebloom pack, and as such,” she reaches into her mess of shawls and beads---

“No!” Abby cries, rushing forward between them. She scrambles at her braided cord hanging from her neck. “No, it should be me. He saved me.” 

Alpha Rosebloom looks down at her. “You’re a cub, my love. As I am the Alpha---” 

“But I’ll be the Alpha one day, because of him.” She holds it out to him - dark brown leather with a claw hanging on the end. Stiles catches a carefully carved rose on the side. “When I’m Alpha, you can ask me for help. I’ll owe you. I have too now, ‘cause you saved me.” 

Stiles makes an absolutely _absurd_ noise. “I don’t...No, that's not why we came. We came because you asked. You don’t owe me anything. You keep that. I don’t need it.” 

Abby takes his hand and presses the necklace into it. “You don’t have any ally packs anymore, we learned about the Hales in school. It binds us as allies. Nanna says it makes us stronger. Like friends.” She shakes his hand once before closing his fingers around the claw. “You saved me like in the stories. Where the knight saves the princess guarded by a dragon. But you’re too old to be my Knight. So you’ll have to be my friend.”

Stiles takes the fucking necklace okay because Abby is a very well-spoken little girl, and Stiles has already proven easily emotionally manipulated. “You drive a hard bargain, Princess.” Stiles lifts the leather cord over his head, and when it settles, the claw rests just below the hollow in his throat. “I suppose I could use a friend.” He unclips his belt and pulls the leather case and knife free. “How about you keep that. And remember you can ask the McCall and Hale pack for help too.” 

They stop for burgers on the way back. Stiles had ended up wearing most of the blood this time, so he’d stayed back in the car while Derek had picked up their food. They eat them in the car, with too-salty french fries and chocolate shakes. Stiles takes a deep breath and bumps his elbow against Dereks over the center console. 

“That felt big.” Stiles has barbecue sauce all over his fingers and exactly one wet nap. The ratio is not good math. “Did you know it was the Alphas grandkid?” 

“No.” Derek hands him his wet nap without mention. “But it’s not strange; that kind of thing would be kept close to the family. A lot of packs keep the identities of future Alpha’s entirely private until they’re twelve or so, to protect them. We were homeschooled until junior high. Besides...It’s not a good sign to lose a cub. The death of a cub would be...heavily criticized.” 

Stiles touches the claw where it rests between his collar bones. “What is this?” 

“Claws of the late Alpha. It’s...customary. For various reasons. You remember, my mothers...” Derek’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror, and Stiles wonders what he sees in the reflection. “It’s a hind claw. The Warrior Claw. The Rosebloom Pack believes Alphas are reincarnated from the heart of the Four First. Abby’s fourth in the Cycle. The Forth Wolf was a Warrior, _Kanos Major._ She’ll be raised to honor that star. It’s a good ally for the pack. You picked a good patron gift - the knife.” 

It had felt right. Stiles is sort of learning to interpret those gut-feelings as something more tangible than nerves or anxiety. They’re emotional divining rods and should be trusted. “I didn’t know I was the Emissary. That seems like something you have to sign up for, at the very minimum. Some conscious levels of consent? Derek, what the fuck.” 

Derek laughs outright at him. “You _know_ every pack has one. You’re the one who told me that! Who did you think it was?” 

“I mean, I hadn’t thought about it real deep, you know, I’ve been working through some things! I just thought that maybe there was like a grace period to find one, you know, for newly established packs. 

“No,” Derek rolls his eyes and snags Stiles milkshake right out of his hand. “There is no pack without an emissary. It’s always someone there from the start. It’s like...the foundation of a house. Packs are...they’re magic. There is magic to them. But to make it work, they need an emissary to bind them together.”

“Oh cool, so no pressure or anything.” Stiles rakes a wild, shaking hand through his hair. “I don’t-- I can’t be your emissary. I can’t help you as Deaton does, he’s like--- he went to medical school. He knows everything. He---” Derek’s shaking his head, shaking his head like Stiles is especially annoying, like the head shake you reserve for walking through an unexpected cloud of gnats on the boardwalk when you were really just beginning to enjoy the evening. Maybe your mouth was open. Maybe one managed to lodge itself in your tear duct, and as soon as you blink, it floats across your cornea. Derek shakes his head like Stiles is that particular kind of annoying. “What!” Stiles cries, absolutely aggrieved. “What?” 

“No one expects you to be a fucking wizard right out the gate, man. We’re all still learning. _I’m_ still learning.” His face softens a little, and he taps his thumbs on the steering wheel in an odd little pattern. “Don’t you think... I mean, after everything. I think it’s okay that we’re still learning from each other. And with each other. It’s okay if we don’t know everything yet. We’ll figure it out.” 

“Thanks for asking me to come.” Stiles doesn’t really know what else to say.

Derek steals the last of his fries and crams them all into his mouth in response. 

Well. That’s that. 

***

So it’s a thing they do. Sometimes they go out. Short day trips North, helping out other packs. It’s not always cutting giant salamanders in half. It’s not always blood and guts. Derek took him west to help a tribal pack for an actual Howling to celebrate the birth of a new Alpha cub. They invite Scott too, who looks devastated that he can’t go. “I love babies, but I have a final in history! Will they be offended?” Derek assures him no one; they’ll understand that the seventeen-year-old Alpha has school. Besides - it’s normal for the Alpha to remain with the pack and territory. 

While they’re there, they meet actual Rock Giants - real _Mountains_. Stiles gives them his contact info. Stiles gives his email to literally fucking mountain-person. A person made out of mountains. 

Sometimes it feels like he’s missing the main plot, getting distracted with the side quests. But...well, side quests for learning. They’re good at it, is the weird thing; they work well. It’s your classic Brains and Brawn trope _,_ really. But it’s nice. Keeps him busy. He’s only seventeen. Idle hands, as they say. They’re helping people. 

It feels good. It makes him feel good. It feels right. 

Then people start offering _money_ for his help, and suddenly Stiles and Derek have a business in supernatural crisis intervention.

Makes sense, really. They’re fucking experts.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who wants to see some Derek and the Sherriff interaction in the next chapter? Because I got something ready....


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stiles says we can’t sing Happy Birthday, but that not singing Happy Birthday is also our gift to you.” Kira sounds disappointed.
> 
> Beside her, Scott pouts. He has frosting on his face. This is their Alpha. Derek thinks his face hurts, he might be smiling so much. “Stiles is a fun-suck.” 
> 
> “Stiles is right,” Derek agrees, still tucked up under Stiles arm. It’s not weird, no one thinks it’s weird, Derek doesn’t even think it’s weird, he’s just aware of it right now. Really, really aware of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> strap in guys, it's Derek's birthday.

Derek is parked in front of the Lone Star Cafe and Bakery on Main Street when the Sheriff knocks on his window. He pauses, hands curled over the steering wheel and regrets not for the first time, his incredibly identifiable car. He knows, without a doubt, he is parked correctly within the parameters white lines. He is within twelve inches of the curb. The nearest fire hydrant is ten feet in front of the car. It isn’t a handicap spot. His plates are not expired. He has no outstanding tickets. There is no reason for the good Sheriff to be singling him out. There are, however, a plethora of bad ones. 

  
  


A lot of them involve delinquent teenagers or dead bodies. 

Some of them included delinquent teenagers _and_ dead bodies. 

Or just Stiles.

“Sheriff.” 

“Derek.” There’s a slight in the way he says the name; it smacks of familiarity where there is none and is pointedly presumptuous. The Sheriff is a respectful man, but he doesn’t much like Derek, for all that Stiles says otherwise. At least, Derek hasn't let himself trust it. It’s hard to believe when the Sheriff really doesn’t have any reason to like him. “Mind stepping out of the car, son?” 

Derek would mind. He would care very much, actually. Still, his record has only just been fully wiped of murder charges the previous year, the proverbial stamp of **_EXONERATED_ ** still practically wet on the paper. And that was for the murder he _didn’t_ commit. Derek steps out of the car. “Is there a problem, Sheriff?” 

“Step up on the sidewalk, son.” The Sheriff doesn’t answer him, tipping his head toward the faux-cobblestones that make up the front of the Main Street Strip. It’s small-town quaint, for all the Beacon Hills is bordering on a metropolis. Derek steps up onto the sidewalk. “Where you headed, Derek?” 

“Home.” His hands clench at his sides. It’s telling, so he buries them into his pockets. “I was just dropping off some mail at the post office.” There were insurance policies to settle, Peter's and Lauras, land taxes to pay, inheritances to sign-off on. Nothing terribly good or inspiring. His tongue still tastes like envelope glue and self-pity.

“Hmmm.” The Sheriff rocks on his heels, the same way Stiles does. They don’t look alike, don’t smell alike on a blood-level (a thing Derek would never mention out-loud, doesn’t know if Stiles knows, doesn’t know about the Sheriff), but they are so much the same, in the things that they _do_. Stiles is too curious for his own good, and his father is the same but with the added bonus of common sense and age-born wisdom. It’s a right combination unless you’re Derek Hale. The name Stilinski implied stress - although John and Stiles inspired very different kinds of stress. Derek was going to regret the day Stiles fell into the same confidence, could already see it in the kid, could already feel it happening. “Come with me, kid.” 

There are a lot of places the Sheriff could take him. The squad car. The station. Deep into the woods where no one would ever find his body or the bodies Derek’s buried there. He doesn’t, though. He leads Derek exactly five steps to the right, and into Lone Star Bakery and Cafe. “Let’s get lunch.” 

The Sheriff orders turkey and swiss on thick, crusty wheat bread. He pairs it with a fruit cup and a plain black coffee. Derek can see Stiles fingerprints all over it. He orders the same in a fit of anxiety, even though he hates wheat bread and isn’t particularly fond of swiss, either. The Sheriff doesn’t comment. 

August is breezy, this close to September. They eat on the sidewalk, under flapping black umbrellas that offer shade, but also suck heat like a hoover and pour it down on them. The Sheriff seems unaffected, but Derek can feel the sweat pooling over his collar bones. The woman who owns the flower shop across the street is watching them openly though the yellow painted _O_ on the window sign that reads _Olivia In Bloom._ The clerk at Shirt-Tales, the custom printing shop, is being even less subtle. It’s all very fishbowl; strangers sitting on the sidelines, watching Derek exist. 

He really sort of wants to pick at the crust of his sandwich but doesn’t know how to without looking like some sort of petulant child. They say nothing; the Sheriff seems content to simply eat his lunch. And so, Derek manfully chews his way through the wheat and grain and throat-choking anxiety. 

“I should thank you for keeping Stiles busy,” the Sheriff says, halfway through a second coffee. “He’s...he’s happier when he’s busy. I don’t love what you’re doing, looking for danger---” 

“We don’t _look,_ sir,” Derek says, hastily wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. “Anymore, jobs find us. Stiles is making a name for himself in the...in the community. And they’re not all dangerous. Some of them just need a consultation.” 

“Kid - I’m the Sheriff. I know what consultation means.” John sighs. “I worry about him getting hurt. I...it’s a relief to see him come downstairs every morning, a skip in his step, don’t get me wrong. And he’s talking to me more - I’m learning all sorts of things.” He’s a little wide-eyed as he says it, and Derek gets that. John’s taken it in stride though - all of it. Just like Stiles, he jumped right in. “But it’s hard to send him out every day, and know he might get hurt. I know it makes me a hypocrite, I know that---” 

“He wants to be like you,” Derek cuts i, with a small voice. He remembers wanting to be like his father; a quiet, confident man who protected his family and credit to his Alpha. “He wants to help people like you do.” 

“I didn’t even want this for myself. But then I met Claudia, and I don’t know what to tell you son. Police Academies really will take anyone. I try to do my best, but I don’t want this for Stiles.” John sighs with the whole of his body and nods more to himself than Derek. “I told him I didn’t want him to become a police office,r you know? It’s hard on families. And anymore... you have to do so much policing from within. I’m lucky, in Beacon Hills. I pick my own officers, and I’ve got so;me good ones. But the world is not like that. Sometimes it’s your own.” 

“It only takes one.” It only took a single bad wolf to bring a pack to ruin. 

John pops a grape in his mouth, chews slowly, and swallows. “You’ll keep him safe? After everything with the...with what happened.” The Nogistune. “I don’t understand my son anymore. I don’t...He doesn’t come to me for help, because I can’t help him. Not with tI don’t have the answers or the solutions to his problems anymore. He comes to you.” 

“We keep each other safe.” Lately, though, Stiles has been a little quicker than Derek remembered. Sometimes he moves like he already knows what’s going to happen - and maybe he does, Derek realizes with a dark sort of clarity. The Nogitsune left things behind. Stains. Derek’s seen Stiles take some hard hits and keep moving. It scares him more than he’d like to admit but he can’t deny - Stiles _does_ seem better. “Stiles is going to be fine, sir. I’d never let anything happen to him.” 

“He said you two were...talking.” John quirks a brow at him. “I don’t actually know what that means to be honest but my best guess is that you’re in the preliminary stages of dating my underage, emotionally traumatized son.” 

“We’re in the preliminary stages because he’s underage,” Derek says very quickly, voice going embarrassingly high. “And because...Well. He’s still...getting better. And I haven’t dated in a while. Since I was his age, probably. Not seriously.” Not willingly. Jennifer Doesn’t Count. Braeden hadn’t been a girlfriend so much as a healthy fling, according to Stiles. An emotional rebound. He supposes that’s fair; Braeden hadn’t really done him wrong. “We’re not ready. And that’s okay!” He hastened to add. “I’m sorry, should I go? This is terrible.” He stands, chair scraping the floor loudly. 

“Sit down.” The Sherriff’s voice is mild, but distinctly Dad. Derek sits. “I’m going to tell you something that Stiles does _not_ know.” 

“That’s okay.” Derek doesn’t want secrets. Not anymore. “You really don’t need too.” 

“I was seven years older than Claudia. She was twenty-one when we met of course, but I was twenty-eight.” The Sheriff sips his coffee and eyes Derek over the rim of his too-small cafe cup. “How old are you Derek?” 

Oh, God. This is...Derek knows realistically he shouldn’t find this worse than the expected interrogation. The Sheriff is shockingly placid, as he separates out all the cantaloupe from his fruit cup with extreme prejudice. He seems okay with Derek and Stiles - talking. Derek’s a little wary. “I’m twenty-three.” 

He sets down his fruit cup with a steady hand and looks at Derek with bright eyes. “Stiles isn’t even really seventeen anymore, is he?” 

“Not in any of the ways that count.” Derek stars down at his empty plate, at the mustard stain on his napkin that looks like Miles Davis Junior. The stain, not the napkin. He wishes Stiles were here to run interference. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him.” 

“You got him back to me.” Reaching across the table, John pats Derek’s hand. “I’m here to tell you that I’m an Officer and an elected city official, sworn to uphold the law and I take that oath very seriously. But I’m also here to tell you that if I had any choice in the matter on who my son might _talk_ too - you’d be on my shortlist. You’re a good kid, Derek. And I like you. You’re just dumb enough to follow my son along on his increasingly alarming quests of curiosity, but you’re also equipped to eat anything that tries to hurt him and I admire that about you.” 

“You _like_ that I’m----” The cafe patio is too small to put it to words but WEREWOLF might as well be written in Alpha red letters right over their head. 

The Sheriff stews on that for a minute. It’s not a trait Stiles inherited, not by a long shot, and it makes Derek nervous. “You know what, I do. I reckon if you weren’t, I wouldn’t like you very much at all. In fact, I’d find your actions incredibly suspicious, and predatory.” The irony is not lost on Derek. He _is_ a predator. “But you are what you are, and Stiles...seems to like you. It’s been a while since he’s really talked to me, so I’m not complaining but the only thing he really talks about is you.” When he smiles, it’s so distinctly _Dad,_ Derek feels instantly overwhelmed. His claws drop, how embarrassing, and so he shoves his hands underneath the table. 

There’s something about the Sheriff that compels Derek to startling honesty. He couldn’t say if it was the inherent Dad Vibe or the Sheriff of This Town Confidence, but Derek felt very compelled to spill the truth. “I’m really uncomfortable.” 

“Your ears are pink as peaches right now,” the Sheriff confirms. “If this had happened a year ago, I’d have arrested you for _looking_ at my son. But...a lot can happen in a year. A lot has happened. I’ve been forced to acknowledge that time is...arbitrary.” It’s not what Derek expects John to say, not at all. “I’ve learned more in a year than I learned in my whole life. Stiles really isn’t seventeen. I don’t know if he really ever got to be seventeen at all, so I can’t...I can’t hold it against him. Or you. Seventeen. Eighteen. It’s arbitrary.” 

“I don’t know what you--- what you think has happened,” Derek sputters a little, suddenly and viciously aware of Many Many Things. “Nothing has happened.” 

The Sheriff grins between them, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes are comforting. “I know - Stiles already told me last night. He’s taking the whole honesty thing way farther than I initially expected.” He huffs a little, crumpling up his napkin and dropping it on his plate. “If you wait, you wait. If you don’t, I never want to find out. It’s not about my blessing, and I’m not going to threaten you. What I’m saying here, twenty-three year old exonerated criminal with questionable past but a good heart none-the-less...you make my son happy. And that’s more important to me than anything.” 

When they’re both finished, the Sheriff pays the bill, leaving a respectable twenty percent tip under his coffee cup. Feeling weird and hating it, Derek drops another five-dollar bill on the table.

John smiles. “This was good.” He claps Derek on the shoulder. “We’ll have to do it again.” 

So they do.

They do.

A couple of times a month, the Sheriff finds him and herds him off to a deli, a diner, or some other eating establishment. Sometimes Derek pays. Sometimes the Sheriff does. They wage a silent and unspoken battle to see who can tip better. The Sheriff lets Derek win a lot. They talk, but not much. There isn’t a great need for it. 

Stiles and him...keep talking. Derek doesn’t know how to make things move, and he figures that if nothing else is a good indication that they _shouldn’t_. They fall asleep a little easier now, a little faster, and a little more frequently together, his bed or Stiles’. Stiles takes a lot of liberties in his sleep that he doesn’t when he’s awake, and Derek’s so fucking ----so fucking---

Touch starved, his mind supplies. Maybe just a little. But he doesn’t mind the way Stiles burrows into his chest, the way he tangles their legs. He likes the way he smells, sleepy and warm, likes the way Stiles hair tickles his face in the morning. He’s never really had this, never enjoyed another person without any immediate expectation. It’s nice. Sometimes Stiles will come over mid day, sprawl all over Derek’s couch - and Derek - and just fuck around on his phone. He still gets absolutely fucking _squirelly_ at any hint of erection though, so Derek does his best to keep his own in check. It’s getting harder though - more _difficult_ \- because even if his brain can’t figure out what he wants...his body has some ideas. 

(A few times now, Stiles has woken up in the night, not in fear or terror, but with that restless sort of energy that seems to plague him. The first time he’d fit his own thumb between his teeth and figited the rest of the night. The second time he’d taken Derek’s hand and done the same and...and the intent...Derek thinks it might have been the _intent_ , but he’s never gotten harder, faster in his life.)

For the firs ttime in a long time - life doesn’t seem intent on fucking him over. It’s been so long since he’s let himself trust these little moments of calm. Nothing since the fire has been easy, no one comes into his life without wanting something, without demands. 

Stiles...Stiles doesn’t seem to come with strings. What a novel concept, Derek thinks. Stiles just...seems to like him. For him. Laura would never believe it. 

(Laura would mock him to the end of days but she would have adored Stiles too.)

The Sheriff finds him in early February, headed toward the grocery store to grab snacks for Pack Movie Night; he resigns himself to a hundred and fifty dollars worth of Chinese food instead. “Get in the car,” he says, slapping the hood of the cruiser. For a moment, Derek’s eyes drift to the caged-in back seat, and the Sheriff laughs. “The front seat, this time.”

The front seat smells like Stiles mostly and that if nothing else soothes his nerves. Derek settles in, pulling his seat belt over his lap, and stretching out his legs. They don’t leave Beacon Hills but they do leave the Main Strip, turning off past a warehouse district, and into the edge that borders the bigger city of Cascade to the North.

This time, the Sheriff parks at a genuine restaurant. _Alfred's Steakhouse_ shares a wall with Moody’s Meat Market, a butcher Derek is actually fairly familiar with. He’s never been in _Alfreds_ though because dining alone is a level of sadness he refuses to sink to. The smell of meat is heavy in the air, inviting in a primal way.

The Sheriff smiles. “Don’t mention this to Stiles.” 

The Sheriff orders a 16 oz porterhouse medium well with a side of bacon covered cheese fries. Derek eyes the menu, completely at a loss as to what to choose when presented with so many possibilities. 

The Sheriff clears his throat pointedly and taps the corner of Derek’s menu where the words “EAT IT IN UNDER AN HOUR AND IT'S FREE” are printed in bold, blocky letters. Depicted below is a grainy photo of a 72 oz slab of meat that makes his mouth water and his other canines itch to drop. 

“He’ll have the Texan,” the Sheriff tells the waitress as she deposits their ice-teas on the table. “And I’ll take a number 9 medium well, with coleslaw and bacon-cheese fries.” 

“There’s a form, and we’ll need to see a credit card.” She eyes Derek critically. “How do you want that, sugar?” 

Raw, Derek thinks. But that’s impolite. Most humans find it distasteful. It would be rude to subject the Sheriff to that kind of behavior. “Medium’s fine.” 

“He’ll have it rare,” the Sheriff cuts in, grinning. “He’d take it still mooing if you let him.” 

“My name is Betty,” the waitress tells them, pulling a timer from her pocket. “And I’ll be watching you eat. Rules are, you finish it in one sitting. No bathroom breaks. You throw up, you lose. No one can help you.” 

“I’d like to see them try,” the Sheriff says, with a little laugh. Derek agrees. 

Betty smiles. “If you break the current record of 49 minutes, you get a free cow, cut to your liking. You can pick it up next door.”

They bring it to him on a slab of wood he suspects is a cutting board, garnished in boring sprigs of kale, and a random tomato slice. Sitting in a pool of its own warm juices, it’s honestly the most beautiful thing he’s seen since finding out Cora was alive. It’s also sort of small.

“Bring me a second one,” Derek says because he’s eaten a whole deer before, in under an hour, bones and all. “Yeah, bring me a second.” 

The waitress boggles at him, glossy mouth falling open. “Are you--  
  


“You heard the boy,” the Sheriff cuts her off, smiling to soothe the rudeness of it. “Bring him a second one.” 

He may let his canines drop a little as he shoves the first too-big bite into his mouth. The meat falls apart under the sharp cut of his teeth, not that Derek is overly minded to chew it. He swallows most of it whole before remembers humans don’t do that. They bring him a second thirty minutes later, rarer than the first. 

“Had to have the butcher cut it,” a second waitress says, as she settles it onto the table. She doesn’t leave. Derek doesn't mind the audience so much. He might be meat drunk. 

A cook comes out five minutes later, followed by a man Derek can only assume is the butcher. The Sheriff carries on as if no one is watching, talking about a game he caught the other day, about the little old lady on Parks and Fifth that likes to hang her underthings on the neighbor's fence for no explainable reason, about the husky that escapes his yard every other day, making a mad dash for the local 7-11 and its chili-dogs. 

Derek finishes both steaks in just under forty-eight minutes, and the Sheriff orders him desert. 

On the chart on the wall where they list all the record breakers, the waitress writes _“Derek Hale 47 Minutes And 6 Seconds; Ate two, and then had pie.”_

“Picture for the wall?” The butcher asks, holding up his cellphone. Derek wants to say no, because who wants a picture of him on their wall? That can’t be good for business. 

But the Sheriff hauls him in with an arm around Derek’s neck, and says “come on son, smile.,Can you send that to me?” He adds to the Butcher like he wants a fucking picture of Derek and him to exist outside this moment. 

Derek smiles, ducking his head down just in time to hide his eyes from the flash. 

The Sheriff drops him off at his car in town. He rolls the window down just as Derek shuts the door. “Hold up,” he says, pulling an envelope from the passenger seat visor. “For you. Claudia used to work for the newspaper, taking pictures. They were kind enough to dig this up for me. Happy birthday, Derek.” 

_Happy Birthday, Derek._

It’s February, he thinks wildly. February already. The ninth, his birthday. With shaking hands, he opens the envelope, a plain white five by eight rectangle with the words PROPERTY OF THE BEACON HILLS GAZETTE - GARDEN CLUB WINNER 1999 stamped on a yellowing label. 

It’s a photo of his mother. She’s crouched down in a long white skirt and a messy braid, her delicate hands cupping the fat head of a bright red rose. Her head is turned toward something outside the camera’s eye - Laura and Derek, tussling on the tire-swing probably, or Cora sitting on a blanket, her fat baby hands plucking at the grass, eating it. On the porch behind her is his father, leaning against the rail and slightly out of focus. His mother is grinning, wide enough to reveal faint smile-lines at her mouth, and little wrinkles near her eyes. She’s so beautiful, it hurts. 

“Are you okay?” Olivia of the Flower Shop asks, cupping him by the elbow. Her face is old and wrinkled and embarrassingly concerned. 

“I’m--” Derek clears his throat. “I’m fine--” 

“Honey,” Olivia smiles at him, soft and maternal and Derek swallows hard. “You’re standing on the side-walk crying. You want me to call someone? Want me to flag John down?” 

“I’m not.” But he is, he can feel the tears on his cheeks, in his beard. “I... My mother---” He waves the photo a little and tries to find the right words, but there aren’t. 

Olivia catches his hand and looks at the picture with a fond little grin. “She grew the best roses. Put my whole garden to shame, really.” Pausing, she lets Derek go. “The whole town was devastated when it happened. The Hales have been in Beacon Hills since it was settled. And then when the truth came out! Why it was like having your heart broken all over again. ” 

“Yeah,” Derek says, and thinks he doesn’t have much of a heart left to break. But that’s not right, not at all. Derek’s mom always said he had too much heart, and maybe she was right. 

Olivia reaches up to pat his cheek. “Hey, but it might be nice to have a Hale back in the Hills. Once upon a time, Hales were good luck.”

“Everyone thinks I killed my sister.” Exonerated or not, people like to place blame, and Derek’s all they have. “And helped Kate Argent burn my family alive.” 

“They might have,” Olivia agreed, admitting ruefully, “and even I wondered at you. But I reckon if the good Sheriff has made a friend out of you, you must be a good boy. I meant what I said, son. It’s good to have a Hale in the Hills.” 

****

The pack’s at his loft when he gets home, still a little meat-drunk with a spring in his step. He can hear them, milling about, arguing, laughing. It’s nice, a nice thing to come home too. Derek didn’t think he’d ever have a full house to call home again.

He’s not expecting the balloons. Or the streamers. Or the cake. “Surprise!” The Pack cries, where Derek’s halfway to hanging up his coat. “Happy Birthday!” 

Stiles is there, throwing an arm over his shoulders. He doesn’t let his hand rest on Derek’s arm as anyone else might but curls his palm over Derek’s neck instead, thumb brushing his pulse. It feels...alarmingly like PTA, boldly done but if anyone notices, they don’t comment. This---this is why Derek forgets he’s not a wolf. Stiles is _scenting_ him. And he probably knows it. But his own birthday party full of nosey baby werewolves isn’t a good place to get an erection. He’d switched out of his too-tight jeans (especially after 148 ounces of meat and one slice of lemon meringue) and into a pair of ratty, possibly blood-stained sweats. They’d hide absolutely nothing. 

Manfully, or perhaps because the Birthday Gods had decided to bless him, Derek shuts that shit down quick. 

“We took a vote and decided we’re offended you thought we’d forget. It’s in the Google Calendar I set up for the Pack, man. There were alerts.” 

“ _I_ forgot,” Derek confesses, and there’s nothing stopping the grin on his face, no shadows to dull the shine. “ I forgot my own birthday.” And yeah, it’s just as tragic the second time around. He’s so happy, he is so _furiously_ happy and for the first time in a long time, he’s not afraid of it. 

“Because you ignore my Google Alerts, man. Those could be important, you don’t know.” Stiles looks pleased with himself right now, he looks so smug as he leads Derek across the room, pressing his thumb into Derek’s pulse. Derek gets the strangest, most intense urge to _bite_ him. 

Gently, somewhere soft, somewhere only for Derek. 

Boner things gonna be a little more difficult than anticipated. 

“Stiles says we can’t sing Happy Birthday, but that not singing Happy Birthday is also our gift to you.” Kira sounds disappointed, but she still takes the slice of cake Erica hands her. Erica blows him a kiss and winks and yeah maybe his pack isn’t saying anything, but they’re not fucking blind either. 

Beside her, Scott pouts. He has frosting on his face. This is their Alpha. Derek thinks his face hurts, he might be smiling so much. “Stiles is a fun-suck.” 

“Stiles is right,” Derek agrees, still tucked up under Stiles arm. It’s not weird, no one thinks it’s weird, Derek doesn’t even think it’s weird, he’s just aware of it right now. Really, really aware of it, of Stiles’ body lined up against his own. Stiles is tactile though, he’s just a toucher - tangible means real. But he’s _scenting_ him and it’s just...a very good birthday present.

“I totally called it,” Stiles hollers at the pack, but he turns to Derek and grins so close to him, Derek can feel the warmth of his breath. “Who forgets their own birthday? That’s sad.” 

“You do this?” He wonders if Stiles got his dad involved - is almost certain of it. And John used it as an excuse to eat forbidden meat. Derek feels...warm, all over again. He feels...like he’s a part of something. They really feel like a family. 

Stiles shrugs and lets his arm slip away but his palm traces the line of Derek’s spine as he goes, resting very faintly at his hip for one small moment. “Maybe.” 

***

It’s late when the pack leaves - nearly one in the morning. Stiles stays at Derek’s house - they do that sometimes. Sometimes they jus tangle themselves up under the blankets and look at dumb shit on Reddit on Stiles’ phone until they fall asleep. Sometimes they fall sleep on the couch and wake up in the middle of the night to Netflix asking them if they’re still watching. 

Derek’s wiping down the counters, watching Stiles dance around the living room, collecting plastic cups and crumpled napkins into a trash bag. He still has the music playing, something poppy and repetitive. His hair’s a little wild now, he never did go back to the buzz cut, and his jeans are older, soft worn denim hanging off his narrow hips. He’ll always be lanky, Derek thinks - but his _hands_. Stiles has the hands of a grown man, he has hands that match his soul. He’s singing along, as he scoops up trash and Derek wants to kiss him.

His brain and his body come to a sudden, crashing agreement and Derek maybe doesn’t know what he wants to do tomorrow, but right now?

He knows what he wants. 

Stiles catches Derek staring at him, going immediately rabbity and awkward under the attention. Since that night in Derek’s kitchen, popcorn spilling to the floor, he’s been especially conscious of doing something embarrassing, like Derek isn’t fully aware of who Stiles is as a person. Like that isn’t part of the charm.“What?” 

“I want to kiss you.” Now that he knows what he wants... Derek really, really wants it. 

The music eats his words though, the thump thump thump of the bass. Stiles frowns, scrambling for his phone. He cuts the music. “Sorry - what?” 

He can feel his resolve shrinking just a little tiny bit in the deafening quiet but Derek steels himself anyway. It’s Stiles. He’s allowed to want to kiss him. He’s pretty sure he’s even allowed to kiss him. Derek doesn’t really know what he was waiting for. He just wants Stiles to be happy. As happy as he is right now.

“I want to kiss you.” 

Stiles flushes, and immediately fumbles the bag, dropping it to the floor and spilling half the contents. “Uh --- Uh.” He swallows and bites at his bottom lip. Derek still has a scar where his teeth would fit perfectly. “What’s stopping you?” 

“I don’t know.” His fingers clench in the half damp dishrag he’d grabbed to wipe the counter. “I---Nothing?” 

“I’m not stopping you if that’s what you’re asking.” His cheeks are red though. “Want me to keep dancing? I can throw this ass in a circle, Derek, don’t you think that I can---- _oomf_.”

Derek’s a little rough on impact, but he’s gentle as he cradles Stiles’ head and tips him back. It’s not a very tender first kiss, but then - he never imagined their first kiss would be. He hasn’t let himself imagine it a lot, but if he was pressed to admit anything at all - it was always going to be like this. Stiles is mid-sentence, mouth open and it’s more opportunity than convenience. Derek decides with the sort of immediacy known to get him in terrible trouble that Stiles has _clearly_ done this before. 

Standing up requires energy better spent kissing the shit out of Stiles. His brain catches up just as he spills them both onto the couch and he holds himself up on both forearms, careful not to crush Stiles. “This okay?” They’re chest to chest, Derek between Stiles’s thighs and the contact isn’t new, but the heat is. Stiles is already hard, Derek’s not exactly shocked, but he seems too distracted to be embarrassed about it. Or notice that Derek is just as hard. Or maybe he’s aware and fine with both, it’s just unprecedented and Derek has no idea how to proceed. 

Stiles answers by surging up and putting his mouth back on Derek - right there, at his pulse, the curve of his throat. Derek doesn’t mean the absolute little growl that escapes him, as he cups the back of Stiles head and holds him there. 

Stiles pulls away later, crashing back into the couch. “I’ve never uh... Really done this.” 

“We don’t have to do anything,” Derek assures him because he’s not really...Not yet. “This is fine. This is...” He forgets to finish his sentence, caught up in Stiles mouth once more. He tastes like birthday cake. Dereks’ birthday cake. 

It’s a few minutes before they come back up for air. Stiles is bright-eyed, cheeks a brilliant pink. “I mean - I’ve never actually done _this_. I mean I’ve kissed people before---” 

“I can tell,” Derek interrupts, dragging his mouth up Stiles throat. “You’re uh---” Stiles hands dip up under Derek’s shirt and yeah, he’s touched Derek all over before, tangled himself right around Derek’s body but not like this. Not with intent. “You’re doing great.” 

Stiles laughs, and Derek shifts a little, the shake of his body just a little too much. He tugs Derek back and gets his hands in Derek’s hair. “Wait---Can I be on top?” 

Derek’s fucking fangs drop so fast he feels a little light-headed. “Fuck,” he says, around them. “Oh, I--- Sorry,” he pushes back, mortified at his own failings because what the absolute _fuck_ . He laughs, mostly at himself, and tucks his face into Stiles shoulder. “This hasn’t happened since I was like fourteen.” _Paige_. “I just need a minute.” 

Stiles’ shoulders tremble faintly and Derek’s well aware he’s being laughed at. “Is this uh...what are we dealing with? Fang boner?” Derek grumbles and it comes out, just a little, like a growl. Stiles pats his arm, pushing gently. “C’mon. Up up. _I wanna be on top_.” 

Huffing, Derek rolls off him, ungainly on the soft couch and with a relentless actual boner obvious in his sweat pants. “Don’t be a dick.” 

“I would never.” Stiles slides into his lap with absolute zero hesitation, no jitters, no blushing. So maybe Derek’s fang boner isn’t the worst thing in the world. Derek can smell how much harder he gets though, as he settles down right on Derek’s very obvious and very hard dick. He keeps himself still, with his hands on Stiles hips. “Let me see?” He tips Derek’s head up, and _touches_ his mouth, dragging his thumb across Derek’s bottom lip. He lets his mouth fall open, shivering when Stiles presses the pad of his thumb against the point. “Oh,” he says, faintly. Breathlessly. “Shit, I think I might like it. Can I see your claws?” 

“You’ve seen my claws.” Stiles has had Derek’s claws in his mouth. He’s seen them. Still, he lets them drop, and pushes his hand up the back of Stiles shirt, pressing them against his skin as light as he can. It’s an instant reaction - Stiles hips roll forward like he just can’t help it.  
  
“Oh--- Fuck. Can you kiss me like this? They’re not that sharp, right?” He’s looking down at Derek, from his perch in Derek’s lap, mouth red and tender looking. 

Derek _can_ kiss him like this. And Derek does. 

Stiles is uh---much more participatory, _on top_ . Whether it’s because he knows Derek likes it, or maybe he just doesn’t like to be pinned down, he’s not sure. He files it away regardless. Stiles holds Derek’s face where he wants it, crowds right up against him and he’s never still, never even quiet. Derek’s---not much better. His fangs are still out, and his claws. He’s fairly certain he’s lost at least half his eyebrows and his ears are most likely at least a _little_ pointed. Stiles is definitely doing most of the grinding though and he has....remarkably good aim. 

It’s been a long time coming, he supposes. And as soon as he says it - Stiles breaks away, chest heaving, mouth an absolute wreck. “I---I think we need to stop. Sorry,” he adds, very quickly. “Sorry, I don’t mean to---” He shakes his head. “I know you probably---” 

Derek puts his hands in moderately more chaste places immediately and gives Stiles as much space as he can, pinned to the couch. “We can stop. If it’s too much. We can--- We can always stop.” 

Stiles takes a deep, fortifying sort of breath. He touches Derek’s left ear confirming Derek’s suspicions. “I don’t want to stop.” He frowns a little, dragging his hand down Derek’s stomach almost absently, all nervous, restless energy. “I don’t want to lie, you know? I’m being weird again. I don’t want to stop. I really...really don’t want to stop. I don’t want to take my pants off because I’m fucking hard and I don’t know what my fucking hang-up is. Sorry, I’m...being stupid. It’s stupid. If you want to touch my dick, I’d be crazy no tto let you.” 

Derek is so goddamn relieved Stiles feels comfortable enough to fucking say it, because Derek? He wasn’t. He never said shit, not all the times he should have, not when his body and brain and boner were all throwing up red flags. “You don’t have to take your pants off.” 

Stiles---Stiles pouts. Derek’s not really sure there’s anything else to call it. He looks distinctly disgruntled, for all that he smells fucking _ripe_. “It’s not like deformed or anything. Or super small. Or otherwise...you know. Not good.” 

“Feels good to me,” Derek says, very lightly, pulling Stiles a little closer. “Stiles--- I’m hard too. It’s okay if you’re ---you’re nervous. But you have to know by now...” He pushes up, rolling his own hips to meet Stiles just a little. “I’m into it. All of it,” he adds. “I _like_ you.” 

“Statistically, somebody had too right? I just sort of thought it would be like...you know. Coach Finstock or someone kind of awful. Greenburg. _Jackson_.” He settles a little, relaxing back against Derek’s thighs. 

Derek smiles. “Nope. It’s me.” He puts his palms on Stiles thighs, feels the muscles twitch there. “It’s not now or never. It’s _never_ now or never, okay? We can...let you go take a shower, and I’ll finish up cleaning and we can go to bed and I won’t think you’re dumb or weird or stupid.” 

“I never said dumb. Do you think I’m dumb?” He makes a face in mock offense, eyes comically wide, mouth thin. “I hate that plan. I don’t want to jerk off in your shower with you like eight feet away. The loft is spacious but your bedroom is also your living room and your bathroom is basically in your kitchen. You’ll hear me or smell me or---” 

“I like how you smell. You just smell like you.” Stiles hangups with scent are totally normal for a human in a wolf pack, Derek knows. He can’t make Stiles get it. “And I like it. All the time.” It’s a _little_ embarrassing, but not in any human way. Derek doesn’t feel bad for thinking it, but he’s never been good at putting any sort of emotion into words. He’s even worse at liking things. Admitting he likes things? Awful. But he wants Stiles to understand that if Derek wandered through the forest and smelled anything as good as Stiles smells right now, he’d probably _roll_ in it. “You smell good like this. And I want to hear you.”

“Well, what if I’m a screamer?” This is how Stiles works through his shit. He makes fun of it. Derek wishes any of his coping mechanisms were half as healthy. 

“Are you?” 

“How would I know? I’ve never gotten off with anybody else.” Petulant now, Stiles curls forward, and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“I’m pretty sure I growled earlier? So what if you’re a screamer. I don’t care. Now, you can go take a shower, or you can come back here, we keep the pants but we don’t stop? All pants stay on, we both --- whatever.” And oh god, _Derek can’t say it._ It’s not something he knew about himself, but he’s also not surprised. He clears his throat, desperately hoping Stiles hasn’t noticed. “Both of us. What about that?” 

But Stiles is already grinning that wide-Cheshire cat smile. “If you can’t say it, you shouldn’t be doing it.” He shifts again, a little more deliberately, spreading his thighs a little wider. “You’d really do that?” The _for me_ goes unsaid, but Derek knows Stiles well enough to see it in his eyes anyway. 

“You keep moving like that, and I really really will,” Derek warns him, smiling just enough to show a little fang. His ears have receded and he’s pretty sure he’s got all his eyebrows back. It’s not really cheating if Stiles smiles back, and he does. “Yeah?” 

Stiles pretends to think about it, or who knows - maybe he does? He looks at Derek from beneath his lashes, mouth curled into his default-smirk. “I mean, your plan could work.” 

Derek reels him in and kisses the corner of his mouth. “I’m certain I’ve never heard you say _that_ before.” 

“Oh my god shut up and kiss me I need to come like yesterday.” 

***

Yeah - Derek’s got _no_ problem with this. Stiles had at some point decided if they were going to keep their pants on, they should take their shirts off. Derek wants to fucking lick him all over but manages to keep himself in check, nipping at his throat instead. Stiles forgets to kiss him about six minutes into it, grinding harder now in these shocking, smooth rolls of his hips. They’re not making out anymore. They’re fucking dry humping on his couch. 

“Ah fuck fuck fuck,” he hisses, pulling Derek’s hair. “Shit, fuck I--- Help me--- I just want it faster, I can’t---” And so Derek helps, hands-on Stiles hips, moving him faster. Derek’s got a fucking foot propped on the goddamn table and he can smell Stiles _dripping_ , can smell how fucking close he is. They’re hot, sticky with sweat, and Derek’s heart is beating almost as fast as Stiles. “Can you come like this?” He asks like he’s not half riding Derek’s dick through their clothes. “Fuck, I just want to make you come.” 

“Keep fucking---” How is Stiles still talking? How is he fucking forming words? If he wasn’t blindly fucking close, he’d feel very shown-up. “Keep saying shit like that and I will.” 

“Oh, I---” his face goes a redder, as if this moment specifically required him to invent a new and more vicious shade. “I wasn’t trying---” 

“You don’t need to try,” Derek manages, hands a little more rough on Stiles hips. He just needs---just a little more. “Fuck, you were scenting me earlier. In front of everyone Stiles, I’m gonna smell like you, they’re gonna fucking know, I --- _fuck, you’re gonna come.”_ It hits Derek low in the gut, a pool of heat; Stiles is going to come and Derek can fucking _tell_. 

“Uh-huh,” Stiles stammers, letting Derek do most of the work now and that’s fine, that’s more than fine, Derek could do this for hours. He’s curled over Derek, body half rigid but half loose, and he drags his open mouth up Derek’s throat, speaking in a small voice Derek’s never heard from him, “not yet, not yet, please Derek, what do you need, I just-” 

“Bite,” Derek says, and Stiles obeys with absolute immediacy, sinking his teeth into Derek’s shoulder and it’s a bright sort of pain, brief and hot and Derek comes just as Stiles does. It shudders through him with a fury, and _Stiles---_ Stiles grinds back against him, hard, working him through it even as he cries out, too sensitive, too tender and he doesn’t stop until Derek stops him. “Fuck,” Derek breathes, letting Stiles go just enough to _look_ at him. “Jesus Christ, that was---” He doesn’t have the brain capacity to put it to words though. “You good?” 

Stiles hair is a wild mess, his mouth is bruised and red. “I’m fucking disgusting, actually but uh---- Yeah. That was---” He swallows, a ridiculous little laugh escaping him, the giddy, overwhelmed, exhausted sort of giggle that only ever plagued him when he was having A Moment, he’d explained to Derek once. “Sorry, I promise I’m not freaking out.” He hides his face in Derek’s shoulder again, warm breath ghosting over his skin. “I’m good. I’m good. That was---good. That was really good, I’m just---” Derek nudges him, lazy gentle, so he can kiss him, just a little, to soothe that nervous edge. “Mm. Yeah, okay, you’re right,” Stiles agrees, to an argument Derek’s not sure he made but isn’t about to protest. “Fuck,” he says, just before bursting into laughter again. “I’m sorry, I---” 

“No, no,” Derek says mildly, trying not to smile, or worse - laugh. “Take all the time you need. I’m not developing a complex or anything.” 

“Thanks,” Stiles says, shoulders still shaking, just a little. “Thank you.” 

Derek makes a face. He shouldn’t be so comfortable, sweaty, hot, and considering the state of his sweatpants. But, he is. Derek’s more relaxed than he can honestly remember, and the loft smells like the pack, but it smells like them too. Mostly it smells like a _lot_ of come. “Please don’t thank me for sex, it makes me feel weird.” 

“You know that’s not why I’m thanking you.” Stiles elbows him but kisses the corner of his mouth too. “Happy birthday, Derek.” 

_Happy Birthday._

It is, without a doubt, the best birthday he’s had in a very long time.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter covered a lot of time and space, but I hope you like it! I love the sheriff so much. And if you have a problem with the Sherriff talking about The Problem With Police or Policing From Within, you can fuck right off and die mad about it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He undoes the button on Stiles jeans, draws his zipper down nice and slow. "Good?" 
> 
> "You too," Stiles insists, half propped on his elbows so he can watch. He's not expecting how much he likes watching until Derek's got his jeans undone. Then Derek takes his dick out. "Oh, wow." 
> 
> Wow. Of all the goddamn things to say when presented with Derek's dick for the first time? Stiles says, wow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in this chapter we talk about a lot of things, but what we talk about most is living with depression. This chapter is exactly the sort of rollercoaster depression takes you (me) on. Hope it's not too much for y'a..

`There is a room in the back of Deaton's clinic, hidden behind a false door, lined with books and grimy clay jars. "I trust you'll keep this secret," Deaton said to him, as he leads Stiles inside. 

"Who would believe me?" Stiles asked, and it was an ambiguous answer at best. "If this fucking town hasn't noticed the constant Hellmouth levels of supernatural violence and horror, they're not going to believe their veterinarian is a wizard." 

"Emissary." Deaton knew as much and nodded. Ambiguity, after all, was his calling. "An Emissary maintains the balance," he explained, wasting no time. Stiles, for once, appreciated the concision. "To be an Emissary, one must bind themselves to their Alpha---" 

"To  _ Derek _ ?" Stiles blinked. His cheeks heat suddenly. "I'll be bound to Derek?" 

"Scott," Deaton reminds him, and yeah - Stiles ... Stiles knows that. Scott's the Alpha. Derek's. Derek. No one needs to know that Stiles accidentally disappointed himself just now. 

"He needs you." Deaton looked at him, no guile in his eyes. "He's always needed you. I can't speak on the fates, Mr. Stilinski, but you have been Scott's balance since the moment you met. You are as you are needed to be. You are Scott's Emissary, and in a way---- you always have been." This was as stark and plain as Stiles had ever seen the man. "Without, he will fail." Continuing as if Stiles never interrupted, Deaton pressed on. "One must bind themselves to their Alpha, in blood and spirit. When the Alpha sees the Emissary as equal, only then may they bond beneath the moon, to form a balance not only within a pack but around it. Scott trusts you - more than himself now, and that is how it should be." He shot Stiles a look. "Without an Emissary, discord is inevitable. An Emissary takes into themselves the power of the pack, and unites it with the moon to create harmony." 

"That's why the pack's a mess," Stiles wondered aloud. "Why they were harder to control than Derek expected. He never had an Emissary." 

"Yes." Deaton took a seat at the long narrow desk filling the room and gestured for Stiles to do the same. "As we are bound to our Alpha and the Balance, it is important to remember that you must never trust the Emissary of another pack." 

That seems like a given. Stiles had only met two, and they were both sketchy as hell. "But, I'm expected to trust you." 

"I'm no longer an Emissary, only a Keeper of the Balance." He shrugged. "My bond died with Talia Hale, and I have chosen to take no other Alpha in honor of the bond we shared." Looking away, Deaton took a deep breath, and Stiles realizes that this wasn't the Deaton he'd known before. This Deaton was open. That, if nothing else, sealed the gravity of the situation. He wanted to teach Stiles. Deaton believed in him. 

"But?" Stiles pushed because there was never a bruise he wouldn't press, never a scab he wouldn't pick. Deaton allowed it. 

"If my bond died with Talia, my alliance with her did not. I will protect Derek in all ways that I can without disrupting the balance. And it's that reason you're here, Mr. Stilinski. Lesson one, never trust another Emissary. They, like you, will serve their pack before all else. Even themselves."

***

Stiles gets better. Mostly. 

It's hard to tell sometimes, from within his mind, but everyone assures him...he looks better. He's sleeping more, eating more, breathing more, and screaming less. His Dad looks better and that if nothing else is a testament to Stiles own recovery. It's all he wants, so he does his best to keep the momentum. He talks to his Dad every day about everything and anything, and his Dad sighs and smiles and says 'jeez, Stiles' in a way that makes him feel nine years old again and thus  _ good _ .

The pack sleeps over at his house less and less until Stiles wakes up one morning wrapped around Derek like the world's most enthusiastic scarf and realizes his bed hasn't been free for any other wolf or otherwise to slide in, for a while. Derek finds him if he doesn't find Derek, and that's fine. Derek's his favorite anyway. 

Scott gets it in an Alpha way, and Stiles doesn't question it. 

The whole Derek thing is weird. It's good-weird though and Stiles figures he doesn't get a lot of good-weird in his life, he's fully prepared to hang onto this with both hands and possibly one leg. He's not sure he needs too, though - Derek doesn't seem inclined to leave. That, if nothing else, makes it weirder. It's just---

A year ago, two years ago - never in a million years ago - Stiles could not have anticipated  _ this _ . Them. Shit, if you asked him six months ago, the first time he fell asleep at Derek's loft, Stiles would have laughed. Because Derek was just helping him. Because that's what Derek did. Like a cool brother, a really cool, hot older brother that should never wear a shirt. The brother analogy might not be appropriate, but what Stiles means is that Derek had been a Bad Guy, and then he'd been A Bro. Stiles hadn't ever let himself consider Derek for any other category except for Occasional Guilty Boner, and it's not really an exclusive category. Scott's in there at least once. So is his mom. Stiles isn't proud of himself okay, the category exists for a reason. 

Honestly - Derek started this. He isn't sure what did it - was it the blood, was it the terror, was it the constant back and forth life-saving? Was it--- Stiles doesn't know, and it drives him insane every single day until Derek's in front of him and then suddenly he forgets to worry about why Derek likes him, forgets to mistrust it, forgets to second guess. It's kind of hard to second guess anything with 200lbs of Derek Hale pressed all up on your everything, and also sniffing your hair. 

Most days, though - Stiles tries not to dissect it. Sometimes you just have to let good things be good. 

Most days. He  _ tries _ . God, he tries. Hypervigilance, what a bitch.

He just really wants to know what did it for Derek. When did he wake up and think - 'So that Stiles kid? What's up with that? I could be into that.' Stiles would really, really like to know.

They're making out in Derek's car on a Tuesday afternoon in bum-fuck Nevada. They've got time before they meet up with the Harpy living in the water tower. Derek's ridiculously good about doing all the teenage things Stiles missed out in actual high school. Stiles thinks it's because he missed out on them too. So they make out in the front seat of the Camaro until stretching over the center console is too annoying, and then they do their best to make the back seat work. 

"Wait, wait, wait," Stiles winces, burrowing his arm under himself to dig the seatbelt buckle out of his kidney. "You need a minivan. This would be so much easier in a minivan." 

"Yeah, but then I'd drive a minivan," Derek argues, very reasonably. Stiles will admit, he's fallen victim to Derek's big dumb sports car. It's hot, Derek's hot, whatever. Derek kisses the corner of Stiles mouth, cupping his jaw. "You good?" 

Stiles bites at him, catching his thumb. "Yep. All good here." He drags his mouth down Derek's thumb, fitting his teeth on the strange scar there. He likes how it feels, how it fits, how it stays. It scares him too, though - nothing good can scar a werewolf. Stiles has poured through every book, and every document Deaton allowed him to touch - if he's left a mark on Derek... there's something still left in him. Not the Nogitsune- no, that's gone. He's starting to think more than shadows stayed. Energy, good or bad, can't be created or destroyed. It has to go somewhere. 

Unless it never left at all. 

"We've still got----" Derek leans to left, looking up at the sky where the sun rests. "Forty-fivish minutes." It's not a werewolf thing, Scott can barely understand an actual clock. It's a Derek thing. It makes Stiles smile. "You wanna be on top?" 

"Yes," Stiles says because - hello,  _ yes _ . "Wait - no. I don't want to---" come in his pants because it's a thing they do. It's a thing they've really both gotten too comfortable with if Stiles is honest. It can't be healthy, right? Derek's twenty-four. He can't be  _ that  _ into it, right? "We probably shouldn't." He isn't the best at telling himself no. If given any control, like say the control of sitting on Derek's dick in the backseat of a cramped Camaro while they dry hump like it's prom, he will not stop. And they have a harpy to meet in forty-five minutes. 

Derek laughs, a soft, warm huff against Stiles neck. "Okay," he agrees like he isn't so hard he's branding a cock-shaped bruise into Stiles' hip. It must be beautiful, twenty-four, to not feel thus dictated by your genitals.  _ Dicktated _ , if you will. Stiles is looking forward to it. "We could grab something to eat? I know---" 

"You could take them off." Immediately, Stiles isn't sure he's ready for that. And immediately following that, he hates himself a little for not being sure. Derek's never been a patient person before, and even though he seems more than okay to wait... It makes Stiles  _ anxious _ . He's not sure what compels him to be like this - to fix things, to make people happy. To solve every problem as soon as it presents himself. He just wants Derek to be happy. 

Derek leans down and kisses the corner of his mouth. "What did I say?" He said, several times, that he likes where they're at, and he's in no rush. Still. It must get old, right?

"I know---I know, I just---" Ugh. No. Derek's fine with what they're doing. Derek likes it. Derek really likes it - sometimes he gets off before Stiles does and that's...Probably the hottest thing that's ever happened in his entire fucking life, frankly. He'd barely grazed his palm over Stiles through his jeans in apology the first time it happened, and that had been enough for Stiles. He'd come like a shot, so sudden and hard he's relatively certain he lost  _ time _ . From Derek touching him over his fucking jeans. "You could. Unzip. Maybe. Would that---" He swallows as Derek moves to obey, just like that, fingers thumbing his button. "What if we---" Jesus fucking Christ, but he can't say it. He made fun of Derek prematurely, it would seem. "I mean, they don't have to be completely off. That would be...ridiculous. We're in a car." 

"If you want me to touch you...." Derek's very careful not to touch his knows, full and well his penchant for a hair-trigger. Bless him and his weird pocket of patience, Stiles thinks. "I'm not going to say no." 

"I mean, maybe you can touch us both," Stiles suggests, looking up at the windows where they've begun to fog against the warmth of their shared breath. This is not the time for Derek's favorite brand of intense, sexually charged eye-contact. "Maybe I can help." 

When Derek smiles - Stiles can see the hint of his left fang. So, he's on board with the idea, if nothing else. "Yeah? Okay." Derek pushes back, shifting his weight to his knees so he can use both hands. It leaves him curled forward a little, under the low ceiling of the car. He undoes the button on Stiles jeans, draws his zipper down nice and slow. "Good?" 

"You too," Stiles insists, half propped on his elbows so he can watch. He's not expecting how much he likes  _ watching  _ until Derek's got his jeans undone. Then Derek takes his dick out. "Oh, wow." 

Wow. Of all the goddamn things to say when presented with Derek's dick for the first time? Stiles says,  _ wow _ . 

He hates himself, just a little. It's not new. 

It's pretty, though, caught in a clawed hand. Stiles---Stiles sort of has a thing for dicks. Beyond the obvious. Like obviously, he has a thing for dicks. He's been obsessing for years. Derek's dick is pretty, wider at the head than the base and curving gently to the left. He's big too - that Stiles knows full well  _ is  _ a werewolf thing. Scott gained two inches in a lot of places. He's not shaved clean, which is a blessing because it never really looks right, as far as Stiles is concerned. He's a man-scaper, trimmed and tidy and that's fine. Did he do that for Stiles, though? Or is it part of his regular routine? He's not circumcised either, and Stiles decides right now if ever a dick was designed with him in mind, it's Dereks. This is his dream-dick. This is the dick dreams are  _ made of.  _

He shoves his jeans straight down his thighs. "Your turn," Derek suggests, quiet but not gentle. No, he's been patient with Stiles, more than patient - but he's very clear that he's got a few of his own wants too. And right now he wants to see Stiles dick. 

Stiles has been waiting for this moment since he figured out what a dick could do; he doesn't know why he's so nervous.

"Mine uh...Mine doesn't look like that." Still, he tugs his shirt up high on his chest and shoves his jeans down, past his hips. It's awkward, with Derek on top of him, requires both their cooperation. And then, there it is - his dick, on display for Derek Hale. 

Derek doesn't do any of the things Stiles sort of afraid he'll do, like staring at it, or worse-- comment. No, he swoops right down and kisses Stiles mouth, knuckles bumping where they hold their respective dicks. "Good?" He asks, bumping a little more intentionally now. "You want me to---" Stiles lets go of his dick like he's fifteen, and his Dad walked in on him in the bathroom without knocking. Derek laughs, but he touches Stiles too and oh God----

That's Derek's dick. Touching his own. That's Derek's hand, on his dick. That' s--- that's a whole thing that's happening. There's a whole new hand touching his dick. This is not a drill. He crashes down against the leather upholstery, seatbelt buckle be damned, and feels the shock of it burn right through him. 

Basically, Stiles comes  _ immediately _ . 

And then it's just Derek, jerking off while straddling his thighs, and that's "Oh God," Stiles moans. Moaning is happening, what the fuck. It's no shock; they're both worked up. They've been making out for an hour, grinding in the backseat for at least half that. The foreplay-ship has sailed. Derek looks close, too. Stiles dick twitches in a pool of its own fucking come. "Derek---" 

Derek stops because he's Derek ---- but then he's dragging his hand through the mess Stiles and made and using it---- "Fuck, fuck, that's Oh---" And yeah he's hard again, why is he hard again, he just came, he's not sure he ever even went soft. 

Derek sits back, still bent awkwardly beneath the roof, but Stiles can see it all --- he can see the flex of Derek's thighs, the jump of his stomach, the twist of his wrist as he palms the head, and he files that for later, he will  _ use  _ that knowledge later. "You should---" Derek voice breaks on a growl, and he bares his teeth, and those are fangs. God, Stiles really loves the fucking fangs. "Touch yourself. I won't ---I won't watch if you don't ---" 

Stiles hand is already on his dick. Neither his hand nor his dick care of Derek watches. They're doing this. This is happening. Stiles squeaks, balls already tender and tight. He's seventeen. This is normal. This is fine. He's making up for all the lost time. 

Derek snarls, hand working faster. He looks away, like it's just too much. "Christ, Stiles. You look amazing---Fuck," his hips jerk forward. "Where should I--- I'm gonna---" 

"Do you wanna----" Stiles shoves his shirt up even higher, baring the whole expanse of his pale white underbelly. "You can---" 

Derek does and Stiles... Stiles has seen him come. Stiles has seen him come exactly seventeen times now. He's keeping track. He's never seen him come like this. He comes, and comes, and comes, covering Stiles belly, and his dick and the frantic hand wrapped around it. The faintest bit, just a little tiny bit really, splashes his face, and that's it for Stiles. He's done. He's fried. He comes, curling forward, stomach clenching. He comes so hard he  _ absolutely  _ loses time, comes back to Derek playing in the mess. 

"I'm not playing," Derek protests, hazy-eyed as he spreads their combined jizz into Stiles skin. "You're going to smell like me for weeks." 

Stiles dick makes another valiant, hopeless and stupid twitch when Derek drags the mess down his  _ own  _ stomach. "I already smell like you." 

Derek's smirk is a small thing, and maybe only for Stiles. "This is different." He leans forward, bringing their disgusting stomachs together and  _ licks  _ Stiles face. "Thanks, for le----" 

"Please do not thank me for literally anything that just happened, oh my God." Stiles covers his face, hiding int he bend of his elbows because otherwise, he'll never be able to say what he wants to say. "I liked it." 

Derek snickers. Derek's snickering now, it's a thing he does just for Stiles. "I know." 

He accepts the baby-wipe Stiles now keeps in his bag (shockingly good at removing blood from the skin, baby wipes. Plus they smell nice). He watches Stiles clean himself up, having caught the brunt of the mess. "You're still going to smell like me." 

This time, Stiles smirks. "I know." 

***

The Harpy takes one look at them and curls her lip back in irritation. "I hate men," she says, very succinctly. "Are there no women in your pack?" 

"There's plenty of women in our pack, but they're better at the ass-kicking than the research, and the one that's good at research has SAT prep," Stile supplies, very evenly. "So, you're stuck with us." 

She sighs but seems appeased enough, losing the faintest edge to her belligerence. Deaton warned him. Harpies...are harpies. "Fine. The witch on Banks Street, a few blocks over? She and I got into a thing; it's whatever." She crosses her arms over her very human body, and Stiles tries not to notice how her shadow does not match her shape. It's a good glamour; Deaton's only just taught him how to see them. "Anyways - she cursed the water in my tower, and I need it fixed ASAP. I have the money." 

"The consultation fee is 200$ Curse removal depends on the curse." Derek looks at him, a little smile at the corner of his mouth. You can't beat up a curse, so this is Stiles wheelhouse. "So. Cursed  _ how _ ?" 

***

So yeah - Stiles gets better. Mostly. Most days. He and Derek are good. The pack is good. His Dad is good. Deaton's teaching him a  _ lot _ . He likes what he does; he loves helping people, solving their mysteries, saving the day, and making money while doing it. Most days...are good. 

Some days...just aren't. 

"I keep getting these feelings," Stiles tells Deaton, tucked away as they are in the backroom of the veterinary office. "From the Void." Stiles isn't sure if that's right. It's not feelings, not quite. It's almost the absence of them. The lack of everything. It's like his brain is telling him -  _ hey asshole, somethings missing.  _

The nightmares, the terror - Derek's chased so much of it away. Now, there's nothing, and Stiles doesn't know what to do with that. 

Deaton looked at him sharply, hand stilling over his mortar and pestle. "Do you believe it to be the Nogitsune?" 

"No." Stiles was mostly sure that it wasn't, anyway. It didn't make his bones feel hollow, didn't make him wake in a cold sweat. It didn't make him murder his friends. "But it comes from the same place? From the Void." He pauses, steeling himself a little. He can trust Deaton; he knows this. Deaton believes him too. Trusts him enough to pour a world of knowledge into his scattered, broken head. "It echoes like it's coming from far away. These feelings, they don't feel like mine." They feel...lonely. But Stiles isn't lonely. How could he be? He has--- the family he always wanted. He has his Dad. Scott. Derek.

He can't be lonely. He's never alone. 

"It's possible it's residual emotion left over from the....ordeal. Although, indeed, you've always been somewhat empathetic," Deaton muses, grinding the petals in the stone bowl. Well, that's news to Stiles, this so-called-empathy. But it doesn't feel wrong, to put a name to what he's always felt. He's not entirely sure he agrees that it's empathy - that he feels anything from anyone else. But it's something. "Let me think on it. You do the same." 

***

And so Stiles does. He goes home that evening and pours himself out onto his bed. Derek's training with the younger pups until later, and he has time. He empties his mind, a difficult feat in itself, and tries not to think of the parallels between his life and  _ Harry Potter.  _ Did the Nogitsune leave its own kind of Horcrux? Were those shadows really poisoning him? 

It's easy to find the Void now, with no Trickster to fill it. Deaton taught him how, how to crawl into himself, how to crawl back out. It's a strange shimmery thing. A hollowed expanse of nothing, just black and empty and endless. It's like a wormhole in his consciousness, big and small at once. 

_ 'Hello,' _ he thinks loudly, but thoughts have no volume. It's a whisper and a shout, and it echoes until it's gone. ' _ Hello _ ,' he thinks and hears nothing in return. He pulls away and wonders why he'd bother in the first place. 

There's nothing there anymore. There's no one  _ there _ . 

That's how he wants it, he tells himself firmly. He doesn't feel empty. He doesn't. 

***

Derek climbs into bed with him an hour later. He takes one look at Stiles despondent face and pulls the covers up over their head. 

Stiles sighs and closes his eyes, safe in the darkness. "Sorry." He really is. He wishes he was easier. That he didn't have to be dealt with or handled. He wishes he was stronger. He rolls over, feeling very stupid and small and sorry for himself. It's not his finest moment. "I'm sorry. You don't have too---" 

"I know." Derek shifts, pulling Stiles until he's flush against his chest. He tucks his chin over Stiles shoulder, kissing that little spot he prefers. "You wanna tell me what's wrong? I mean, you know if I can't punch it, I probably won't be much help. But I could listen. I don't have anything better going on right now." He shrugs, jostling Stiles on purpose as he drags his stubble all over his shoulder. "It's whatever." 

"You fucker." Stiles elbows him in the stomach, smiling despite himself. "Why am I sad?" He---he doesn't mean to ask like that. It doesn't mean to say it. But it's there, out in the open under the blankets. Derek holds him a little tighter, puts his teeth against Stiles skin. "I don't know why I get like this. I don't --- I swear, I'm happy. I...things are so good. For the first time in a long time. And I'm happy, but..." He shakes his head, feels his eyes betray him, fat salty tears clinging for dear life on his lashes. "Shit." 

"They don't talk about mental health....werewolves, I mean." Derek tangles up their legs, let's Stiles put his cold toes all over him. "It's just not a thing. We heal - we can't get... But Laura would...sometimes she just...couldn't get out of bed. And she swore up and down--- she wasn't unhappy. She just...couldn't get out of bed. I blamed myself, and I still do a little bit, but I think... Sometimes...especially when bad shit happens... our brains don't trust it when the dust settles. They forget how to be happy, or they're afraid too." 

Stiles can feel himself shaking, can feel the tears burn his skin. But he makes no sound. He grabs Derek's arm, and hugs it close to his chest, lacing their fingers. "I don't want to feel this way anymore," he whispered, afraid of his own voice. "God--- I don't want to feel like this." He swallows, clinging a little tighter. "Will you---" 

"Anything," Derek interjects. "God, Stiles. Anything." 

And he means it. Stiles knows he means it because he'd do anything for Derek, too. For the pack, even. For his Dad. Its the only way he knows how to love. It makes him cry harder, which is stupid. God, it's ridiculous. He keeps Derek's arm crushed to his chest, and pulls them both forward, until Derek's crushing him down against the bed. "Like this?" 

Derek rearranges them a little bit, but he keeps Stiles pinned down. "Of course," he says like it's not weird. "For what it's worth...I think you're doing great. It's okay to be sad sometimes. It's not for no reason. Sometimes you...you have to let yourself feel the way you feel. You just have too." 

And Derek would know. Derek, the King of Suppression. Mexico had changed him, something about being young, and then being an adult again had given him a new sort of emotional clarity. So Stiles decides to trust him. "I..." He sucks in a deep, shuddering breath. "Thank you." 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah honestly that last part was hard to write.

**Author's Note:**

> So I absolutely have more of this written but not ready. What do you think? Worth carrying on, or just a nice lil one shot? I left a lot of questions unanswered - feel free to ask em in the comments.


End file.
